


William Carter’s Greatest Magic Trick

by Cidersap



Category: Don't Starve (Video Game)
Genre: AU, Action/Adventure, Amnesia, Angst, Drama, Gen, M/M, Post-Canon, Survival, Translation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-17
Updated: 2019-11-21
Packaged: 2021-02-07 21:20:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 52,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21464710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cidersap/pseuds/Cidersap
Summary: William Carter, a street magician, suddenly finds himself in a strange and dangerous world. Most of the danger comes from an axe-wielding man, who seems to believe it is all Carter’s fault.
Relationships: William Carter/Wilson (Don't Starve)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 91





	1. The Train

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Leadlay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leadlay/gifts).
  * A translation of [Лучший фокус Уильяма Картера](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4012540) by [Leadlay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leadlay/pseuds/Leadlay). 

> Translator's notes:  
This is technically an AU. There are some terms that changed due to the Russian version of the game having some interesting translation choices and the effect those had on the writing. Hopefully that won't be noticeable.  
Since this work was written back before the Reign of Giants expansion came out, its world is closer in atmosphere to the game that was than to the game that is. Also, this contains pre-slash.   
I hope you'll have as much fun reading this work as I had translating it.   
Enjoy!

William blinked. The train had seemingly disappeared, along with the crowd, the platform and the train station ceiling. Instead, he was lying somewhere, looking at the sky, wide and blue and cloudless. Underneath his strangely numb fingers he felt grass.

“Well, maybe I’ve fallen asleep,” he thought, slowly turning his head to look around. It seemed like a good dream.

There was a fluffy red rabbit sitting in the grass nearby, maybe a foot from his face. It wasn’t all that scared of the human - it sat up and looked at William, curious.

“I wonder what’s that on its head,” William thought peacefully. He wanted to sit up and take a closer look, but he only managed to move an inch before something suddenly hit him from the side.

And grabbed his neck.

“YOU!”

The rabbit screeched as it disappeared into the tall grass, but it was hard to hear it through the noise. His attacker yelled something, and William wheezed: he wanted to scream too, but the grip on his throat was too strong.

William was never into fighting or sports. Maybe because he wasn’t really built for it: he was scrawny, tall and had bad eyesight. Sure, a good magician wouldn’t need eagle eyes or physical might, but William was neither a good fighter nor a good magician. He had to learn what to do when the audience wasn’t satisfied with his show. Especially the kind of audience he got when travelling through smaller towns in the country.

So he did what he knew how to. He kicked his attacker in the shin with one foot, hoping to hit the bone, and kneed him in the gut with the other. The attacker’s grip slackened, and William rolled from under him, leaped up and ran. Sometimes he thought about the dark irony of the fact that his feet did him better than his hands. Just as uncle Henry predicted. Some of his predictions turned out to be right, it seemed. Except maybe the prison part.

So far his legs haven’t let him down in those situations. The crowd’s anger was rarely directed at him, specifically. It mostly came from their lack of intelligence, the alcohol in their blood, the boredom. After all, if the show was dull, it could be replaced with a good brawl. If the lanky outsider got away, they’d fight among each other - the evening was spent well enough that way. In the worst case scenario William had little to lose: an old top hat, a shabby suitcase and a couple of rabbits. That didn’t happen often, though: after two months of traveling along the East Coast, the young magician had learned to make do with a small number of props. He kept them in his field of vision and usually succeeded in grabbing them quickly enough to get away. Whatever truly important possessions he had have migrated into a more secure place - to be hidden in his shoes, for example.

Although this time, someone must have hated more than just his magic.

William was grabbed by the ankles and yanked back harshly. He yelped and fell, trying to hit the bastard clinging to him but he dodged the strike easily. William turned and tried to pull to the right, but the attacker’s fist pummeled the ground mere inches from his ear. Next thing he knew, the merciless hands were on throat once more.

  
“So you wanted to run?” the man growled right in his face, “Well where’s the good old smoke? Why can’t you just disappear this time? Getting weak, huh? Huh,  _ pal? _ !”

  
William wheezed. He was completely screwed, it seemed. Last time he got into that much trouble was his second smalltown performance in America. Most of his audience turned out to be some young cultists who seemed to believe they were still living in the middle ages. The show was over the moment he stepped on the stage. The smoke cleared, and William, who just “appeared” out of it, bowed, waiting for the applause. Seconds later he was escaping through the corn fields. He was probably lucky they didn’t get torched. And Jack still had the gall to praise the “simplicity of country life”!

William squinted at the hands on his throat, and then at the man who seemed determined to killed him.

Indeed, William was screwed so completely he had no words to describe it. There was some crazed vagrant sitting on top of him, squeezing his neck. The man’s clothes were once decent, maybe even dapper, but that time has long since passed. His vest was littered with holes, brown with mud and - oh god, was that blood? It was keeping together what remained of a button-up shirt with the sleeves ripped off near the man’s elbows. His arms were covered with strips of black fabric that seemed like it had been taken from his trousers.

The man’s face was twisted with fury and madness, his hair dishevelled, face covered with uneven stubble, small scars and scratches. A perfect portrait of a crazed wildman.

What was worse, it was just the two of them in the middle of some kind of forest. There was nobody around to help.

Some kind of forest.

How did he get here?   
  


No, it must have been a dream. And not a good one.

William shut his eyes tight and tried to wake himself up, but it didn’t seem to work. 

“Don’t you dare,” his attempted killer hissed, “You won’t get any more pity from me. In Tesla’s name, what’s come over me? I should’ve killed you back on that throne!”

“I’ll give you back the money,” William wheezed, feeling the grip on his throat weaken. “And I’m no devil, sir... I’m just a magician…”

The madman laughed.

“Sure! You’re no devil! Just a magician in his own little world! And the ticket here cost me so much you can’t even begin to repay me… Unless maybe…”

He leaned closer; William tried to sink back into the ground, but in the end he could only watch as the madman held him down in a strange, almost gentle way, like one would hold a caught bird.  The man grinned. All William could see were the chapped lips, the scratches, the scars, the black stubble and the savage-white teeth.

“Unless maybe I’m eating well tonight.”

William couldn’t take it anymore, he shut his eyes and he screamed.

He screamed just like when that one time, as a boy, he fell into the neighbor’s well. It seemed to be reaching the same result. The well’s owner, old mister Hopkins, was mostly deaf and haven’t noticed anything for almost twelve hours.

William thought that next he’d be strangled or maybe bitten to death, but the man didn’t do either of these things to put an end to his victim’s screams.

William fell silent and decided to take the risk of opening his eyes.

The madman was still pinning him down with his own weight, and holding onto his neck, but the hold has weakened. He looked baffled.

“You screech like a pigman,” he said, bewildered.

“Don’t eat me! Please, god, I’ll do anything! I just wanted to board a train! I’m all skin and bones, no better than a scarecrow. Take my money instead, or- or I could buy you dinner! A great feast with steaks and beans and beer, and - ooh! I’ve- I’ve got two rabbits! They may look old but they aren’t as brittle as they seem, they’d make for a great stew!”

“You…” the man shook William by the neck “say something again. And don’t scream.”

William gulped. “Please don’t kill me. I’m just a magician. Not a fraud… Not a spiritist. I’ve never deceived anyone… I just do magic tricks, entertainment- That smoke, it’s all pretend, a sleight of hand, I’m not some kind of demon. Not a good magician, I know, if you didn’t like my tricks you can have your money back, no problem- just please, don’t kill me.”

“Your voice,” the madman said, “you… you  _ sound  _ different.”

He frowned, and it was harder to breathe again.

“If it’s just another one of your tricks…”

“I don’t know how to do things like that,” William gave him a forced smile, “I’m not a ventriloquist.”

“Well, what can you do?”

“I pull rabbits out of a hat… And the smoke… It’s not really a trick, just trying to set the stage. And I do card tricks… choose your card ones, and making the deck disappear, and air shuffling… well, I’m not that good at it yet, but sometimes it comes out pretty well.”

The madman took his hands away from William’s neck.

“You said something about a train?”

“I was getting on a train… I’m not sure, but I bought a ticket for San-Francisco, and-”

“San-Francisco?”

“I just wanted to try starting over, that’s all,” William shrugged, “This is the land of opportunity, right? I bought a ticket, and I was going to board the train - and the next moment I’m here, lying on the grass.”

Surrounded by rabbits and psychopaths, he wanted to add, but didn’t, of course.

“If you’re lying to me, Maxwell, I won’t stop at just killing you, I-”

“Where- I haven’t told anybody yet. How do you know that name?”

The madman said nothing.

“I thought about getting a stage name - my real one isn’t all that impressive, and this option seems the best so far. It sounds good, and it would look flashy enough on the posters, like…”

“Maxwell’s demon,” the madman said.

“What?”

“It’s a thought experiment. Physics.”

  
William didn’t know much about hard science, but the crazy man was still straddling him, so he answered carefully.

“I guess so. I haven’t thought about that. Just an interesting word. No demons attached.”

The madman was silent for a minute.

“When is your train?”

“At noon,” William answered quietly, “Noon, August 15th.”

“Which year?”

“This year, of course. Jesus.”

“When I last looked at the calendar, it was the middle of 1928.”

“That’s not right,” William said, even quieter, “It’s 1904. Fifteenth of August. About twelve o’clock, I think.”

The madman stood up.

William considered running away, but the man was still watching him, his downward stare unnerving.

“And you don’t know me, do you?” he asked, in a very different tone of voice.

“This is the first time we’ve met.”    
  


William propped himself up on his elbows, realized he wasn’t being attacked anymore and then sat up.

The madman offered William his hand.

“Wilson Percival Higgsbury, scientist.”

William looked at it.

“William Henry Carter,” he answered after a short pause, “magician.”

Higgsbury didn’t stop at shaking hands. He pulled William upwards, helping him up.

***

William shook his head. 

“That’s absurd.”

He distinctly remembered the way Wilson Higgsbury was when angry, and didn’t want to go back to that. Still, there was nothing else to say about the things he just heard.

“I thought the same at first.” Wilson nodded to himself, ”And I persisted in thinking so almost until sunset. That was a big mistake on my side.”

“What happens after sunset?”

“Night falls.” the scientist responded politely. “It gets pretty dark, and, sadly, being in the dark isn’t at all safe here. As I’ve told you already.”

“The terrible invisible monster?”

“Maybe it is visible and just hides really well. I couldn’t tell for certain. But it certainly has impressive claws. See for yourself.”

  
And with that he (completely nonchalantly) unbuttoned first his waistcoat and then his shirt, which had certainly once had more than four buttons.

William shuddered.

“There, see this scar? Setting the closest tree on fire was my saving grace. Sure, half the forest was up in flames, but it was bright as day.”

“Um...This one?”

“No, the symmetrical cuts are from a tentacle. I’m talking about the biggest one. It looks a little like an old burn, an indent-”

“That… Excuse me, but that’s most of your back.”

“That’s exactly what I’m talking about.” Wilson nodded. He was buttoning his shirt back up. “We’d better have a light source come nightfall.”

William looked down.

“Are you sure you’re not mistaken?”

“Absolutely. The light repels it. And  _ Them _ , too. This world has been made by somebody, and it would seem that somebody was you. You… your future self has told me there wasn’t much when you got here. Mostly dust and Them. And you turned this world into a big twisted trap. Look at those rabbits, for example. Do rabbits in the real world have horns? There, right there, see the burrow next to the tree?”

William looked at the rabbit sitting on the other side of the forest clearing. Probably the same rabbit he saw when he woke up. It really did have something on its head.

These really were horns. The rabbit had two small, slightly curved horns.

Just like jackalopes from the old stories.

“Is this some kind of a joke?”

“Your kind of a joke, I presume.” Wilson said. “Maybe you remembered pulling them out of a hat. Maybe it would be handier to pull them out by the horns, instead of by the ears.”

“The ears aren’t that handy, indeed,” William said without thinking. He had just realized something very important.

He was looking at the rabbit sitting on the other side of the forest clearing. The distance between them was no less than fifteen yards, and yet William could see every detail perfectly - the horns, the eyes, even the tiny moving nose.

“I’m near-sighted, you know,” he said calmly, “Have been all my life. I always keep my glasses with me, if I can.”

Wilson shrugged. “Maxwell doesn’t wear glasses. You must’ve fixed yourself up once you could. Well, do you believe me now?”

  
They were both silent for a while. William looked at the trees.

“What do I look like?” he finally asked.

“Like the most evil bastard on the face of this earth. I’ve wanted to kill you ever since I got here. The future you, I mean.”

“Well, maybe you have a mirror?”

He didn’t have a mirror, but there was a small pond nearby, which Wilson directed him to. The water was dark and muddy, and William inspected his blurry reflection for a while, trying to make out the details.

“I’ve lost more than twenty years of my life,” he said.

“The flow of time is different here, or at least that’s what you told me. I’ve been here for about two hundred forty eight days. That’s about three year cycles here - changes of seasons from summer to winter, I mean. But then I had moved between worlds, so there is no telling… Yes, there are several worlds in this realm. Some are worse, some a bit better, it’s all probably a matter of preference anyway. They are all awful enough in their own way.”

“At least you remember all of that time.”

“To be honest, these memories aren’t the most pleasant. Maybe you wouldn’t like yours either.”

“I’d prefer to decide that for myself,” William said. “I can do without someone telling me what to think here.”

Wilson didn’t say anything, and William, who was still looking at the pond, has suddenly remembered the feeling of the man’s hands on his neck. He turned around.

“I didn’t mean it as a- I was just thinking out loud, don’t take it personally, al-” he babbled.

Then he saw the change of expression on Wilson’s face, right before the man dove towards him. William tried to at least cover his head this time.

“Grab it!” Wilson yelled. In an instant, he was lying on the pond’s edge, hands in the water, “Go for the head, come on!”

There was a big fish in his hands, thrashing and fighting to slip back into the deep. William watched numbly as the thin, scar-covered fingers gripped the cold scales, the black wrappings covering Wilson’s arms barely visible in the dark water. These hands themselves looked a lot like deep water creatures.

“Help me, would you!”

Fighting his squeamishness, William put out his hand, and the gasping, writhing creature jerked towards it. His hand closed on its head and, to his terror, he felt the scales give in under his fingers.

“It’s the gills! Pull it out!”

William yanked the fish out of the water. It was huge - no less than three and a half pounds of weight, he thought. He threw it on the grassy forest floor. It jerked around in agony until Wilson smashed its head with a stick he picked up on the fly.

“Marvelous,” he said, kneeling next to the fish and looking over it.

Wilson looked at him and beamed. Despite the water dripping from his vest and arms, his smile was positively glowing.

“It looks like we’ve got dinner.”

William looked himself over. His arms were wet up to the elbows, his new striped suit probably ruined (he knew he shouldn’t have worn it to the train station), and his shaking palms were all covered in silvery scales and slime.

“Right,” Wilson stood up, carrying the dead fish with a strange kind of confidence. 

“You probably don’t know yet. The monsters here may be something, but they aren’t the worst part. The main law of this place, at least if you want to survive long enough is  _ don’t starve _ .”

***

William really did want to wake up, but it seemed what happened wasn’t a dream after all. He ended up in a wild, twisted place full of monsters and haunted by the looming threat of starvation. That was bad enough. What was worse, there was a maniac with an axe, who deep down was still convinced that it was all William’s fault. 

Wilson knew how to wield an axe terribly well for a scientist he described himself as. That day, which William decided to call “day one”, he’d found an axe stuck in a tree on a nearby forest clearing. There was a big wicker backpack lying next to it, filled to the brim with all kinds of homemade gear. When Wilson saw them, he was so happy he’d dropped the fish he was carrying, muttering something about how he hadn’t hoped to see these again. He gently, carefully traced the axe handle with his fingers and then yanked it out of the tree with one fluid motion.

Wilson was so elated about the luck of finding his gear and catching something for dinner that he was positively beaming with friendliness. He showed William how to set up camp, and make a quick fire. They cooked the fish and split it between them as Wilson chattered on about which things to watch out for and which would end their lives if they were too careless. Literally all of it sounded like delusional ramblings of a psychopath. Yet it was day one, and William has decided to postpone the panicking. If he woke up on the train station the next day, everything would be fine. If not, then…

Well, then uncle Henry can celebrate a victory. William’s life would end in an even crazier set of circumstances than the worst of what the old man had predicted.

The one thing William refused to believe was his own alleged involvement in creating his surroundings. His future self’s involvement. Uncle Henry had made many mistakes in his predictions, but William had to admit, however bitterly, that the man was right was about his hands. God, even for a simple trick with a silk “appearing out of thin air” he had to utilize all of his attention and a well-sewn inner pocket. And there he was, getting accused of “appearing” a whole world!

On the second day, the strange new world hasn’t gone anywhere and the train station didn’t come back. William decided it was too late to panic. He just helped his new companion wrap up their camp. The scientist was much shorter than William, and didn’t look all that intimidating, if one was willing to overlook the shabby clothes. And the axe. 

William had found something to arm himself with, too - that was a fact that didn’t cause him much joy. It was a big, curved sabre. He found it stuck in a tree stump, hidden somewhere behind the pond. On the ground next to it there was a long shirt made of small rings. It reached down to his knees when worn. Wilson Higgsbury could probably use it as a nightgown.

It was a chainmail. That’s what these things are called.

Both the sword and the chainmail were transparent, like some kind of smoky glass.

These were not made of glass, though. William was sure of it. Maybe in this world there was transparent metal. Why not? It was nothing compared to the horned rabbits.

The see-through chainmail was laid right next to the see-through sabre. When William first saw it, this fact had seemed extraordinarily funny. He snorted, and then started giggling and then he fell onto the grass, laughing hysterically, only managing to stop when Wilson had dipped him into the pond by the head.

”Don’t touch that,” Wilson said gravely. “Some of the strange things you can find here are useful, and some… some do  _ this _ to you. I’ve seen this junk before. I had to touch it for it to take effect, though.”

“These are transparent. See-through.” William said, wiping the water from his face. “Made of glass! Isn’t it funny? Oh god, we’re going to die here, aren’t we, Higgsbury? Aren’t we both going to die?”

“Maybe,” the scientist shrugged. William didn’t like his expression. The sympathy quickly melted into determination, and then, for a second, there was a kind of a grim, malicious joy. 

“Let’s go. We’ll need to find food.”

Wilson turned away, fiddling with the backpack straps. William looked at the axe that laid on the ground, not so far from him. Then, he made a decision. He stood up silently and very carefully walked to the sword stuck in the tree stump. He yanked it out, forcefully.

“I told you not to touch it! Drop it, you fool!”

William turned abruptly, gripping the sword’s hilt with both hands and pointing the blade outwards.

“I feel fine,” he said slowly. “Nothing out of the ordinary.”

“Fine? You were rolling on the ground laughing after just standing next to them!”

“I,” William cleared his throat. “I was just out of it. It was all too… unfamiliar. Too much. But the water was quite effective, thank you.”

“You can hold it and feel alright?” Wilson circled him, axe in his hands, watching William intently. William flinched. “Are you absolutely sure? You’re not having a headache? Isn’t your vision getting blurry?”

“No… no, I’m fine.”

“Well,” Wilson stopped. “Maybe… maybe these things have a different effect on you. Just try not to wear these around me. And try not to use both this sword and this armor at the same time.”

Wilson put on his backpack, then picked up the axe.

“I propose we head south along the edge of the forest.” he said.

“Accepted.” William answered without thinking. He wrapped up the chainmail and held it under his arm awkwardly, unsure what to do. His other hand was holding the sabre. His suit was now ruined for sure. The striped suit, which wasn’t nearly as new as he thought.

“Also,” Wilson said, still not turning back, “if you’re just pretending to be someone else, Maxwell, if you’re trying to trick me and catch me off guard… No swords or armor will save you.”


	2. Unease

It was the evening of the third day when they met the living pumpkin. 

If it was possible to drop dead from joy, Wilson Higgsbury would be close to doing just that. He hopped up and down, yelled something happily and danced around hugging the pumpkin, which was big, slobbering, had too many teeth and was covered all over with red shaggy hair.

“Chester! Chester! That’s Ches! Who’s a good boy? Who’s the most loyal? Ches, buddy, are you happy to see good old Wilson?”

“May I ask what that is?” William inquired politely, trying to clean the saliva off his face and lapels.

Wilson finally let the pumpkin go, and it was running around him on a set of short red legs. The pumpkin was panting loudly with its tongue out, just like a mastiff.

“May I ask what that is” was a phrase William had used about fifty times by then. Whoever created this world - it most certainly wasn’t him - whoever created it had a twisted sense of humor and a weird imagination. Things that looked normal harbored dangerous surprises, and absurd-looking oddities could sometimes save your life. Wilson had a great laugh when William ran into their encampment screaming - he was collecting some berries that tasted a lot like red currant off a bush when something has jumped out of it. Something screeching, something mangled, a creature that looked as if it had escaped a blind taxidermist’s shop. William hasn’t taken the sabre off his belt since, even when leaving the camp for a very short time. He hasn’t succeeded in hunting any gobblers yet, though.

“This is Chester. Otto von Chesterfield. He’s a friend of mine. He can carry things for you and help in handling the local fauna.”

“Carry-”

“Yes, on the inside. I can show you, look.”

Wilson, still with complete nonchalance, did something that William would think was a professional trick. If he didn’t know that Wilson had no time to prepare.

“...So, how are you going to get that out?”

“Well, I can just take it out… Ches, gut!”

William couldn’t help letting out a sound of disgust.

“Or I could just ask. Ches, spit me a carrot!”

“Would you mind if i give you my cut of the carrots tonight?”

“Remember, squeamishness and survival are incompatible,” Wilson said, smugly, wiping the carrot off on his trousers. He took a big bite and then bowed down and picked something off the ground. It was a bone with - oh god - a blinking eye at one end. He put in his pocket and then stopped, lost in thought.

The pumpkin closed its maw, tucking up the wide tongue, and looked up at William. Then it bumped into his legs. 

“Something wrong?” William asked.

"The bone," Wilson said, mostly to himself. "Why is that. Strange.”

“Quite the scary thing,” William said carefully.

“Sure, but that doesn’t really matter… What’s important… first it’s Chester, then the bone… hm.”

Wilson shrugged and crouched next to the pumpkin, petting it.

“It’s nothing, anyway.”

On the fifth day Chester the pumpkin had slowly started gaining a place in William’s heart. It has decided to sleep next to him, warming his back with its furry side. The pumpkin’s gut, which was seemingly its entire body, could hold a remarkable amount of different things. Including live rabbits. And Chester was as warm, friendly, and as slobbering as any regular dog.

That same day William saw that the pumpkin could be more than just a moving bag and a warming presence. That afternoon, Wilson whistled, calling up the pumpkin and went out to hunt. He had managed to create a formidable-looking primitive spear out of a stick, some cut grass, and a sharp piece of flint. All the while William had stayed behind to guard their humble belongings and do some logging.

They had to cut trees down often. It took a lot of fuel for bonfires to stay lit, and without them… William still remembered that scar on Wilson’s back. The one that was the biggest. 

After a short time William’s palms had become calloused. Swinging the axe, handling branches and sticks and enduring all the other charming parts of the nomadic lifestyle was not easy on his hands. They were sore, bled and were sometimes in so much pain he couldn’t make a fist. Following Wilson’s example, he’d wrapped them with strips of fabric, having to cut his shirt sleeves to get material. His tie was used for bandages back on day three, when a mosquito the size of a small dog latched onto his leg. 

Days were surprisingly long there. “About forty-six hours long”, according to Wilson, who was much more interested in that topic than him. 

Cutting trees was hard, and chopping the tree trunks into logs was even harder. William had thrown off his jacket and his vest, leaving on only the pitiful remains of his shirt that now had no sleeves. Swinging the axe, chopping, cutting off limbs and branches, he thought about what uncle Henry would think of him, and sighed. Sometimes he thought about Jack, too, and he laughed - it would be quite something if his brother saw William. He’d probably congratulate him, even.

For the first two days, everything hurt. By day five his body was slowly but steadily getting used to the awful new circumstances, but his back was still protesting - protesting the constant struggle, the thin sleeping bag made of straw that was also a foot too short (they ran out of material too soon), the brief periods of sleep he managed to get, intersected by standing guard at night, and the cold ground they’d broken camp on. William’s body was older, as he reminded himself. He wasn’t twenty anymore. The twisted creator of this world had decided he just couldn’t be twenty years old, and that was it. As if everything else was not enough.

William wasn’t used to manual labor, but he understood the situation very clearly. He wouldn’t survive in this world alone, and Wilson wouldn’t trade food for his illusion-making talents.

Well, Wilson himself had survived alone somehow, William thought, fiercely swinging his axe at the thick pine tree. It was the second one he cut that day. Every single tree in this world was a pine tree. It was hard to get confused. Maybe that was for the better. William couldn’t really tell one tree variant from the other since he was young, and the evergreens were probably the only ones he could recognise. 

On the other hand, Wilson Higgsbury was a scientist. He said so himself, and after a while William had noticed that his companion wasn’t just experienced but truly intelligent. Never before has he seen a person capable of making his brain work as quickly in times of need. The gentlemen from the laboratories usually had flexible minds, allowing them to accept the wildest things if they are proved to be factual, and even admire the complexities. Maybe that’s what let Wilson to survive, and only that - to retain most of his sanity. If William were to appear in this world alone from the very beginning… He’d probably go crazy by sunset. If he lived that long.

Still, along with the times when Wilson exhibited curiosity and determination there were the periods of him being overtaken by annoyance and paranoia. He’d called William “Maxwell” several times. From him it didn’t sound nearly as splendid as it was supposed to.

And Wilson still was alarmingly good with an axe. Much better than William was with his transparent sabre. Though he knew his companion didn’t really need an axe to be dangerous. Just like on the day William marked for himself as “the first”.

“At this point I’ll only last a few days by myself.” - William thought grimly, still chopping the pine. He’d noticed that if he just held the axe without moving his hands too much, his palms and hands would just go numb and stop being so sore. “If he goes completely insane, I can run… or at least I hope so. Right now it’s safer to stay.”

He cut down the pine, chopped it up and moved on to the next one. He only managed to take two swings at it.

* * *

The sounds William was making couldn’t even be called screaming anymore, he was screeching, choking on his own fear, trying to crawl away along the mossy ground. At first he shut his eyes in terror, but that just made it worse. The puffing and the heavy booming steps of the monster’s tree trunk feet were much scarier in the dark.

“This can’t be,” a distant part of him that could still think said. These are just pine trees. Evergreens. They stay in the ground. Sometimes they get cut down. But they never drag their roots out of the soil under the axe, they don’t turn into terrible forest giants trying to tear people to pieces. 

In a single motion, Wilson had jumped onto a gold-veined boulder and then leapt onto the monster’s back, stabbing it with his spear.

The pine roared.

“Chester, torch!” Wilson barked, clinging to the furious thing’s back, yanking the spear out.

There was a flash of light. Making a nauseous noise, the pumpkin spit out a stick wrapped in something and, holding it in its teeth, stroke the boulder with it.

A second later - a second in which everything happened too quickly for William to comprehend - the evergreen was on fire. It was bellowing and howling, spinning in place both trying to stomp the pumpkin biting at its roots and to get rid of the invisible foe on its back. 

Wilson had taken the spear out and now was striking the monster with it over and over, fierce, haloed with smoke and sparking, glimmering flames.

“Chop it, you idiot!” he shouted; The pine had lifted its terrible claw and tried to squash Wilson, but he hung on tenaciously. 

William realised that the words were meant for him, and felt even more terrified. For him to attack that thing? To chop at it? 

“It’s just a tree!” Wilson growled; The fire was climbing up, eating away at the branches and probably hurting the monster, and the man was barely hanging on, hardly visible between the spiking pine needles. “Cut it down, like any other damn tree-!”

A coughing fit stopped his words - the monster was shrouded in smoke, though it wasn’t giving up yet. It blindly thrashed around the clearing, butting into another, regular evergreen. William didn’t want to imagine what it was like on the creature’s back.

He looked around, searching for the axe, which was lying on the ground not far from him, forgotten, and then back at the battle. He couldn’t make out anything in the writhing mass of flame and pine. He grabbed the axe and leapt into battle.

William took a few blind swings, hoping the branches and the wood he managed to hit belonged to the creature and not to the burning trees on the clearing’s edge. Then, he had to jump away from the smoldering heat of the fire.

“Higgsbury!” he yelled, trying to make out something, anything in the roaring flame. He was struggling to dodge the swings of the crazed monster that was swatting around in anger and burning agony. “Higgsbury! Come on, that thing’s on fire! Jump!”

William hit the pine’s base, trying to reach the roots.

“Wilson!” he shouted desperately, looking up.

The burning tree was struck with a spear, and it let out an ear-piercing howl of a groan before finally toppling to the ground, reduced to a pile of smoldering logs.

“Did that ages ago,” Wilson said, standing next to it. “I’m not  _ insane _ , you know.”

He bent over in another coughing fit.

“It’s nothing… Combustion products… Breathed in too much. A bit traumatic, but it’s the easiest way to deal with these things. And don’t touch that filth on the ground,” he warned William, who stared curiously at the charred logs left by the pine. “Oh. It has set the whole forest on fire after all.”

The forest was, indeed, on fire. The whole ring of trees around the clearing was up in flames; William didn’t know much about forest fires, but he was ready to bet that the next day the only thing left of the forest would be a good ten-mile-wide stretch of scorched wasteland.

“Let’s wait here,” Wilson said. He walked over to the gold-veined boulder, leaning heavily on the charred spear. “These burn quickly.”

He sat down and gave the pumpkin’s back a pat. Chester was already jumping around, tongue out, as if nothing had happened at all.

“Good job, Ches. You’re the best boy ever.”

“Um… Higgsbury, I- The firewood I’ve chopped. It got left behind there,” William made a vague gesture outward. “There. Where everything’s on fire.”

“I’ve figured,” Wilson sighed.

William hesitated for a moment, then sat down next to him. They looked out onto the flaming forest. The fire was indeed starting to die down, leaving only the thin charcoal skeletons of trees. Somewhere far away the orange flames were still moving. Still crackling. 

“Pity. Thankfully, I didn’t manage to cut down much.”

“How many did you get before the monster appeared?”

“Two. That thing would be the third one.”

Wilson was silent.

“And those two… They weren’t old and and frail, were they?”

“No,” William said, surprised, but not as much as he would be in different circumstances. He felt a sharp pang of guilt. “Two tall, robust pines.”

Wilson looked on at the fire, unseeing, deep in thought. He was silent for a long time. Then, he finally spoke.

“Don’t worry. There’s enough evergreens around here. We can also gather plenty of charcoal, it burns for longer and weighs less. If we get lucky hunting we’ll have plenty of meat to smoke and dry.”

“Weren’t you scared?” William asked that evening, sitting next to the campfire. They’d spent the rest of the day chopping away at the burnt trees that fell away under a few swings of the axe. The resulting pile of charcoal was almost William’s height. It was situated not far from the fire pit and covered with wet grass to prevent a loose spark from igniting the whole thing. What was more, in between the charred wood William had found a few unlucky birds that ended up stuck in the fiery trap and got baked to a crisp. 

Wilson looked at him, seemingly confused. He was distracted, the baked crow meat he was just savoring hanging loose in his hands.

“When you attacked that damned thing,” William explained. “It… I mean, It was quite… spectacular.”

“No,” Wilson said. “I was scared the first few times, when I had no idea what these creatures were and what to do. Fear always comes from ignorance.”

“May I ask what that was?”

“I call them “foresters”, they are just guarding the place. Usually those guard pines aren’t even aggressive, if you don’t cut trees or set things on fire. You can even sleep next to one Unless you’ve angered it, of course. You don’t even have to kill them, really, it’s enough to show you care about the forest. For that, it’s best to bury pine cones… Its primitive brain, or whatever is up in that pine head, thinks that you are seeding trees, basically making reparations to nature.”

William stared at the bird bones being tossed into the fire. Each was stripped bare, ivory-white.

“If there aren’t any pine cones around, attack from the back, hit it as much and as quickly as you can. Set the thing on fire, it weakens them. And don’t try to run, it will follow you, even if at a snail pace. Quite persistent, these fellows.”

Wilson licked his fingers.

“And it’s not ‘spectacular’ at all. It’s long, painful, and generally pointless. Those creatures are completely inedible.”

Noticing that he was staring, William hastily took another bite, pretending to be completely engrossed in his dinner.

William thought he knew what hunger was like. In his adolescence there were times he didn’t eat enough, mostly due to his own stupidity. Then, during his travels along the East Coast he quickly realised that his magic tricks wouldn’t guarantee him a lunch, not to mention breakfast or dinner. But all of his past experience paled in comparison to the situation. Maybe it was all the manual labour he had to do to stay alive, William couldn’t say for certain. In his past life he lived from one piece of bread to another, all the while dreaming of hot soup. There was no soup in this world. And no bread. They ate what they could catch or what they could gather, and god knows, it was not enough.

On the eighth day William noticed that his already slim figure had thinned even more. Looking over himself - his skin was much older than before, and he didn’t want to think about that - he noticed his ribs were shamelessly sticking out. On the other hand, his arms and legs strengthened. His palms were no longer bleeding. He became tougher, more enduring, as would any creature that relied on its endurance to survive.

Wilson was terribly thin, but his endurance was unmatched. If the local monsters got him, it would be after he’d run himself so rugged they’d only find a pile of bones and skin. “They wouldn’t get him, though,” William thought. No, that was unlikely. Right before his eyes, Wilson, who has survived this world so long, had killed an enormous living tree. And the numerous spiders of this world, the smallest being the size of a three-year-old, were but a way to let out his anger. Take his rage out on them in the times he was particularly annoyed. Wilson wouldn’t even take his spear with him then, preferring to wield the axe.

William, clutching his sword in his hands, not daring to come closer, watched as Wilson tormented another spider cocoon with the axe. It was the fourth one on that clearing.

“You know,” Wilson turned to him, axe raised, as if he was going to continue his attack, clothes and hair covered in white wisps and tattered shreds of spider silk. “You know what bothers me?”

“What?” William asked, putting his hand on the transparent metal. It felt out of place fastened to his wicker belt of dried grass.

“It’s the middle of the day, and we’ve got half a dozen of empty spider dens.”

“Maybe the spiders decided to migrate?”

William wouldn’t feel sorry if they did. The creatures scared him. They slept in their cocoons, only coming out at night, and their meat was bitter and chewy. His head would spin after eating it, and he felt nauseous. Wilson just seemed even angrier, more paranoid, more easily annoyed, jumping at the smallest noise.   
  


Though even spider meat was better than nothing at all.

“Maybe. I don’t believe so. And believe it or not, it’s been more than a week, yet we’ve seen no hounds. Not a single one, despite the fact they’ve been regular as clockwork before.”

William nodded tentatively.

Wilson lowered the axe and closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“You know what, Carter? Let’s gather some more silk. And then we’ll be as far from here as possible before the sun goes down.”


	3. The Thing

On the tenth day William found the thing.

He was crouched next to the bush, picking off berries. He kept his sword near, ready to give chase if he saw game. Instead, he saw something lying on the grass. A long stick with a radio on one end.

Ten days were a long time, and he’d learned quite a bit. At first he was still. Then he got up, very slowly, not taking his eyes off the radio, and backed away, carefully. And then, he turned and ran for his life. 

“Maxwell’s radio.” Wilson said, deliberately not touching the weird thing. The tone of his voice was very, very flat.

Chester the pumpkin stood frozen close to Wilson’s legs. It sniffed the air and growled.

William was unsure. When his companion mentioned Maxwell everything usually went haywire, but he needed information too much to back down now. 

“What does it do?”

“It searches for the other… pieces. Parts of the Gate. Assembling the Gate over and over is how I reached you. I’ve told you about it.”

Wilson did tell him about it. Allegedly, Maxwell (aka William) was sitting chained to some throne made of shadow, a gramophone with an awful melody at his feet. Allegedly, he scattered these parts of the door about to lure Wilson into his lair and escape. At first the scientist was fooled and opened the locks, but quickly came to his senses and attacked. The only thing he managed to achieve was landing them them both on that forest clearing.

Actually, the ones who landed on that clearing were Wilson and William. The terrible Maxwell was gone.

If he ever even existed. 

If Wilson didn’t make it all up.

Sure, William was years older than he was just ten days ago in New-York, and his eyesight was suddenly perfect, but that was certainly not proof enough. He had to end up in this world through some means, maybe his age and eyesight were just another condition on which that happened.

Of course, Wilson was helping him, without him William would be gone the first day.

He’d surely be gone.

Wilson was grim. He hadn’t shaved in all that time, despite having a razor. A real steel razor, not made of flint like his other tools. Yet he let his messy stubble turn into a small, unpleasant beard, and if his eyes looked sunken before, now it was as if they had wide charcoal circles around them.

He slowly reached for the radio and then grabbed it, yanking the stick out of the ground.

The radio made a sound. A soft, quiet hum.

“The other parts are far from here,” Wilson explained mechanically, “or it would screech like a cat being skinned alive.”

“Wait, so this must mean- this machine is like a divining rod? And if we collect all the pieces we get a gate to another world?”

“Yes.” Wilson said, plunging the stick into the soil. The radio went silent. “A world just like this one. Or much, much worse. How would you like a world where it’s winter forever, for example? I’ve lived in a place like a that. What about an alternative where it rains carnivorous frogs?”

“This could be our chance! How do you know?”

“A chance to do what, exactly?”

“To go back,” William’s mouth suddenly went dry, “to escape.”

“To go back where?” Wilson laughed bitterly “Where, pal? To New-York? San-Francisco?”

He was staring William right in the face. Then, he spoke.

“There is no way out of here. The only path in this world leads to your throne. And I have been there already.”

Wilson crouched next to the pumpkin and scratched the top of its head. The pumpkin let out a high-pitched whimper.

“Try to appreciate what you’ve got. It’s a summer afternoon, you’re on a meadow, there is plenty of food and fuel in the camp. It’s not going to get better. It’s _ never _ going to get better.” 

“That throne isn’t mine.”

“Yes. The throne belongs to Maxwell,” Wilson said. He went silent, and William tore his eyes away from the old radio. Just in case his companion decided to try and kill him.

But Wilson was frozen in place, fingers still tangled in the pumpkin’s fur. His eyes went blank, as if he was staring at something far away.

“Maxwell’s throne,” he said, slowly. “They don’t let anyone go, ever. That’s what you said. I’m here. You’re here. So, who’s on that throne right now?”

“Higgsbury,” William said. The hilt of the sabre was warm from the afternoon sun. “Higgsbury, it’s me, Carter. Not Maxwell.”

Wilson blinked. He combed a hand through his hair, forcefully. His hairstyle, if you could call the muddy, uneven mop sticking out in all directions a hairstyle, just got even worse.

“Yes, of course,” it took him a lot of effort to get up, even leaning onto Chester. “I apologize. I’m just... tired.”

“Maybe I should get the first shift first tonight?”

“You’re too kind. It’s better that you don’t, though. We’ve checked everything around here: no spiders, no other monsters. The midsummer nights are short. Let’s just add more fuel to the campfire and get some sleep.”

They ate plenty of ‘roasted berries’, as Wilson called their most frequent meal, and laid down to sleep on the different sides of the campfire. Of course, William hasn’t closed his eyes all night. Somehow he could’ve sworn his companion didn’t sleep either.

At dawn William took the radio with him and impaled his backpack with it, fixing the thing behind his back like a sword or a magic staff from an old story. Wilson decided to shave that morning. Upon seeing it, he froze with a razor in his hand, and then shook his head and gave William a weak smile.

“You’re hopeless,” he said.

***

It was the evening of day twelve that they’ve reached the sea.

William has never seen such a strange combination: the grass of the meadow almost reached the tide line, leaving the waves exactly five feet of fine brownish sand. Usually the sound of waves hitting the shore can be heard from far away, as William himself knew very well. Yet, in the strange world of monsters and hunger even simple truths like these were called into question.

You could hear these waves only when standing right next to the water.

Wilson stood on the edge, hands on his hips.

  
  


“We’ve got quite a big island this time,” he said, approvingly. “Let’s have a layover here… I’ll mark it on the map and then… Which direction do you prefer, east or west?”

“You understand this better than I do.” William was staring at the blurry grey mist covering the horizon. He couldn’t see anything there.

“Oh, come on, give that up.” Wilson said, all good-natured. He took off his backpack and sat on it, drawing something on his map. The map was a sizeable piece of parchment, folded many times and looking rather decrepit and fragile. On it was a chaotic mess of markings, lines, contours of several islands, little depictions of monsters here and there, fierce crosses exclamation marks and letters from five or six different alphabets. The only person who could gain any information from that thing was probably Wilson himself. 

“Give up that idea, I mean. I’ve tried to swim away already. Even made a raft once. After a hundred feet forward there is pretty much nothing, except a thick layer of fog. It’s like trying to sail through an eiderdown quilt.”

William set the backpack on the grass. He reached down to touch the sand. The sun was beaming down. 

“Actually, the shore is a good place for a rest in the summer. The sea is pretty much dead: no fish, no monsters, there isn’t even any seaweed and molluscs or whatever. It’s not saltwater, either. I’ve tried to assemble a microscope, but…” Wilson shrugged. “Although there must not be much in the way of microbes here. At least I’ve drank that water twice, right from the bank, and it did me no harm. I guess Maxwell didn’t concern himself such minute details.”

Wilson noticed the ‘Maxwell’ in that little speech, but it seemed like this time, Wilson only mentioned his nemesis to prove a point.

“At least the water doesn’t freeze over during winter. There are birds, something like a cross between a seagull and a penguin. Like… pengulls. And these things can be damn dangerous… sure, their eggs are pretty good, but it isn’t worth it. So, in ten days we’ve got to be very far away from here.”

“In ten days…”

“Yes, the winter starts.” Wilson took off his shoes. “The summer lasts around twenty three days. You’ve noticed how high up the sun is? You could consider it late August for this world. And I don’t know about you, but I’m going for a swim. My clothes could use some washing, too. This much freshwater shouldn’t go to waste. You with me?”

“I… I’m not really the one for swimming. Is it deep out there?”

“I see.” Wilson snorted. William would take it for mockery, if Wilson didn’t have that expression on his face. The expression that accompanied a special feeling of recognition, of understanding. A feeling that a scientist would get from solving one of the mysteries that have riddled his mind for a while. William himself wasn’t familiar with it.

“I see why there are no rivers here, and the ponds are so small…”

Washing himself and his clothes with ash instead of soap did no good, neither to his skin, nor to the clothes. Bleakly, William watched the clear water turn dark as he rinsed his shirt for the third time. He had notably fewer clothes now: his vest has been ripped apart to make bandages, half of which were used immediately after. 

Standing where the water was up to his waist, William carefully touched his side and winced in pain. He’d hoped the latest wound was healed up enough already, but evidently, it was not. He carefully stripped off the makeshift bandage and dipped it into the water a couple of times. He wondered if he could ever get his clothes to be clean again, even if he had soap. Then, he walked over to where the water was clearer, bent down and washed the coagulated blood off his side. The sight unnerved him. These black things, was that dirt? Or maybe something worse?

“Higgsbury,” he shouted, “is it possible to get gangrene in this world?”

“I’ve been lucky so far, and the medicine seems to be working. Don’t worry though, I have some knowledge about amputations.”

“Isn’t that reassuring.” William looked his side over again, and splashed some water right at the wound. It hurt, but the black things were off.

The medicine they had was, in fact, some hellish mix Wilson concocted out of ash and spider insides. William knew how the necessary organs looked and where to cut them from, but he never really asked his companion to clarify what they were. He wasn’t a scientist after all, he could live without that particular bit of knowledge.

There is some irony in this situation, William thought, trying to wash the most unseemly blood stain out of his suit jacket. The wet sand he was using didn’t make much of a difference. The spiders are disgusting, mostly inedible and could probably eat anyone themselves, but somewhere inside of them there is medicine that can heal even the worst wounds. If you manage to kill the eight-legged bastards first, of course.

He spread his clothes on the grass, in hopes that the warm temperature and the sun would dry them fast enough. At least there was no societal expectations and no sense of decorum to worry about in this nightmare world, William thought, shyly taking the spider salve and fresh bandages out of the bag. Society wouldn’t judge him - there was no society to speak of. If anyone was to see him almost naked, it would just be the spiders. And Wilson Higgsbury, who was in the same condition and didn’t seem to be bothered at all. All hail being natural. 

William was convinced that Wilson could kill and eat his companion and the idea of cannibalism would bother him no more than any other abstract prejudice like propriety. Squeamishness and survival were not compatible, after all. Every night, getting into his sleeping bag and letting Wilson know it was his turn to stand guard, William wasn’t sure he’d wake up in the morning. He kept his sabre close. Especially on the nights when Wilson had those episodes of bleak weariness and paranoia, leering at William as if he were an enemy. Or something he could eat.

Wilson climbed on the shore, huffing, water splashing in all directions. He dropped on the sand contentedly, throwing a pile of his clothes to the side. 

“The sea is quite nice,” Wilson said approvingly. William sneaked a glance at him and almost immediately looked away, silently cursing himself for it. There was no society in this world, but some of its ideas were still in his head.

Wilson was sitting just a few feet away from him, his form thin, angular, bony - the body of a survivor. Scars were covering his shoulders and back, old and new, and the worst of them was the one from where he shouldered the strike - the bite? - of the unknowable monster of the night. Evidently, that thing could turn a human back into the likeness of an embossed postcard. William could swear that dent was a good tenth of an inch deeper than the skin around it.

William felt the strange, sort of unnatural desire to know what that skin would feel like under his fingers. He reached out without thinking, almost touching his companion’s back.

Obviously, Wilson felt it was a threat.

“What the hell,” he mumbled, turning around. He was wrapping his hands with the fabric again, and his left hand, already covered, clenched into a fist. His right hand seemed even thinner than before, and the ribbons of fabric were dangling off it like slick poison dripping from a spider’s fangs.

Maybe that’s why he didn’t notice the real danger.

William was looking out to the sea, and he had time to react. He grabbed the unfinished wrappings and yanked Wilson down with him, praying that his companion wouldn’t see it as an invitation to fight. Wilson was stronger, and rolled over him quickly, managing not to lose his balance, but didn’t go for murder right away.

Lying on the sand, they looked up at the birds, which did look similar to seagulls, just three times the size. The birds leaped out of the sea with the shrill cries of a seagullish nature. Their webbed feet slipped on the grass just a few inches over the men’s heads, showering them with debris.

“Pengulls?” William asked after a minute of silence. His fingers were still clutching the damp wrappings, touching Wilson’s slender wrist. 

Wilson said nothing. The entire flock, no less than twenty birds, has landed on the meadow. Judging by the sound, they were peacefully waddling away from the shore.

  
  


Wilson slowly sat up. William watched the sand fall off his back, off the mangled terrain of his scars, getting stuck in the smaller indents, round and symmetrical. The work of a tentacle, as he once said.

“It’s broken,” Wilson said.

“What is?”

  
“It’s the world.” Wilson shook the remaining sand off his back, looking just like a wet dog, and was already putting on his shirt. “Pengulls don’t come in the summer. The hounds are here every eight days. The spiders only come out in the night. Something’s off. Something is broken.”


	4. The Box Thing

After the pengull incident Wilson’s mood was worse than ever. Even Chester got no more attention from him than a safe yet useless plant. William decided not to risk asking more questions (though god knows he had some). He just trudged along by his companion’s side, dreary and tired. His backpack was heavy, the see-through chainmail taking a lion’s share of space in it.

Lately, he did start to use it as a nightgown. The knowledge that there was a metal barrier between him and a sudden swing of the axe in the night was comforting. Even if said metal was transparent.

He thought about wearing it then. While the chainmail sure was heavy, not at all suited for travel, his jacket was still damp (Wilson didn’t wait for his clothes to finish drying, and William didn’t have the guts to argue). It certainly wasn’t much more comfortable.

It was much more useless, though.

In any case, William decided not to anger Wilson any further, keeping very calm and very quiet, except for the sound of his footsteps on the forest ground. They were heading deeper into the grove, looking for a good place to set up camp. The shore was no longer so enticing after the pengulls descended on it.

That’s why William was the first to jump up in surprise when something let out a tortured howl right next to him.

Wilson turned abruptly. 

They didn’t make it far from the shore. Was this the pengulls' battle cry? William looked back over his shoulder and tried to get away, taking out his sword at the same time. The howl, making a pause long enough for a heartbeat, continued on the same frequency.

“Calm down,” Wilson said, watching William, who had fallen on top of his backpack, struggle to take his stuck weapon out of the scabbard. “It’s the radio.”

“The radio?”

“Yes, Maxwell’s radio… Can you hear the change in pitch?” he added. “It does sound just like a cat is being pulled by the tail, doesn’t it?”

“The radio,” William muttered. The blasted thing was poking through the backpack, still howling right in his ear. “You said it changed pitch around… other pieces, right?”

“Yes, I did.” Wilson turned away and kept moving. William struggled to get upright and catch up to him, before his companion disappeared into the woods.

The sound was growing more and more annoying. William didn’t think it sounded like a tortured cat. More like the blaring of a distant factory alarm. Either way, it wasn’t pleasant. 

  
  


He really wished he could stop and yank the radio’s handle out of the backpack. It wasn’t really possible on the move. But he’d have to ask Wilson to stop or risk losing sight of him.

“Shut this goddamned thing up already!” Wilson suddenly growled, stopping dead in his tracks.

William threw the backpack on the ground. The radio went silent.

“How else am I supposed to carry it around? I can’t turn it off, and it keeps screeching when I touch it, even through the bag!”

“Well, it will keep screeching if the pieces are close,” Wilson grumbled. “Be quiet for a second. Can you hear anything strange?”

William listened. After the radio’s howling the woods seemed very quiet. Leaves were rustling in the wind, and the pengulls could still be heard going about on the beach, faintly. Everything else was silence.

He shook his head.

“Must’ve been my imagination,” Wilson mumbled, hesitant. William could see that hesitance, so obvious in his face, and he felt uneasy. “Eight days… Maybe it’s just the shift…”

“What’s supposed to be shifting?”

Wilson didn’t answer. He adjusted his backpack straps and grasped the spear in way that would make it hard to lean on and walk with.

Throwing it at something from that position, though? That would be very easy.

Just around the bend they saw a valley, covered with sun-whitened, almost yellow grass. William was already used to the landscape changing abruptly in that terrible world. The sharp edge of the beach was still fresh in his memory. But there was something unnatural on those lowlands. Closer to the farther edge, there was a trio of stone obelisks in a circle, jutting right out of the ground.

William’s mind jumped to the visions of faraway desert lands, the stories that the travelers and brave explorers told of them. The pagan temples, the idols of cut stone, the rituals sated with blood. There was a dry thorn-covered tree looming over the circle, making the feeling of unease even worse.

Wilson’s movements came to a halt again.

“Take out the radio,” he said, his voice flat. Expressionless.

William did as he was told, and the screeching, howling cries of the radio did scream of torture this time. The device itself was shaking in his hands.

They headed for the obelisks, slow and weary. This time William led the way. The radio, it seemed, was drawn to the silent, motionless ring of stones.

The fact that there weren’t any monsters around really meant nothing, though. Or so William thought, taking his sabre out with one hand, keeping it close and ready to strike.

The stone ‘idols’ looked more like fence posts up close. The tallest of them came up to William’s shoulders. The masonry was almost painfully normal. Human. These may have looked like relics of an ancient sanctuary from far away, but they turned out to be the vague signs of civilization in this wild, ailing world. William remembered seeing something similar in the old Hopkins' backyard. The old man couldn’t get to fixing his fence for twenty-odd years, so the only things left of it were the gate and a couple of fence posts. The fence itself rotted away almost completely.

Old Hopkins’ backyard never contained anything like the cube of copper and wood they saw, nor a small, one-foot-tall statue of a pig.

“May I ask… what that is?”

“The box thing,” Wilson crouched next to the statue. “It changes the polarity of the universe.”

“It does _ what _?”

“Fascinating,” Wilson looked the pig statue all over, then picked it up, “There was only a gnome before.”

“A gnome?”

“What are you, a magpie? Yes, a gnome. There was a clay garden gnome standing next to the box, what’s so hard to get here?”  
  


The statue was a crudely made one, but William noticed the pig’s smug expression. The pig was anthropomorphic, or at least it had strange proportions for an animal, and was standing on its hind legs and wearing something resembling a short grass skirt.

“Oh, by the way, meet the likeness of this world’s natives.” Wilson lifted the statue higher. “Here are the indigenous species of Maxwell’s realm! Well, they actually aren’t that bad,” he added, condescendingly. “They live on a very primitive level, but they build homes for themselves, they can talk, even if just barely. They even figured out agriculture. They are also big meat lovers - you feed a piece to one of them and the pig is all under your command. I tried to live near them, even, but you know… It made me weary. I even managed to tame one of them. It followed me for almost eight days.”

“And you named it Friday?”

“No, why? Why on earth would I name a pig after a day of the week?”

“It’s from a book,” William sighed, sitting down next to the box. The second he touched it the radio went silent, but that silence was far from companionable.

“Did it mention someone taming a pig, too?”

“No, an aboriginal… It’s from Dafoe. About a man who had to survive on a desert island for almost thirty years and then managed to escape.”

“How, exactly?” Wilson took his eyes off the statue and stopped petting the pumpkin, which he’d called in the meantime. Probably to save the statue for later.

“He was picked up by a ship. Jesus, will people completely abandon reading in your times?”

“Ah, a ship,” Wilson grumbled, losing interest immediately. The statue was gone inside the pumpkin’s gut. “No, why, people will still be reading. We’re going to accept the endless wasting of our own and other’s time as completely normal, you know.”

William turned the box over. It was made of copper and wood and seemed to be completely monolithic, except for a small lever sticking out the side. If he hadn’t heard Wilson call it a box, he’d assume it was a fashionably useless modernist ornament meant for a living room.

The lever wouldn’t shift when he tried to flip it.

“I called that pig Oinkers.” Wilson suddenly decided to continue his story. “I’m pretty sure he had a name before, but that series of oinks and squeals was pretty much unrepeatable. He wasn’t much of a conversationalist, but… here, any company is better than nothing. Even a pig is better than nothing. It’s a pity I had to say goodbye to him.”

“You’ve killed and eaten it, haven’t you, Higgsbury?”

“No,” Wilson said after a brief pause. “It turned into a werewolf and attacked me.”

It was at that precise moment that the lever finally moved.

There was a click.

Then, there was music.

It was the most terrible set of sounds on earth.

William would rather listen to an eternity of the radio’s howling than endure another second.

“Turn it off!” he screamed, clutching his head in his hands, deafened, unable to hear the sound of his own voice. The only thing he could see were dark, unstable tendrils of smoke writhing: a morbid dance.

His vision slowly cleared. Wilson set the music box on the grass. It was silent once again. 

“Deja vu sure is unpleasant,” he muttered under his breath. ”I hope you’re not planning on taking that thing with you?”

“Is this a piece of the gate?” William asked, wiping the tears of pain from his eyes. “Then I am.”

“God, Carter, I’ve- Carter, could you put that radio of yours down now at least? There just can’t be two pieces of that thing so close together!”

“I am not touching it at all. See?“ he threw his hands up in a gesture betraying a professional magician. “Nothing up my sleeve, too.”

“Bloody hell…”

William couldn’t get up in time. The sabre, lying on the faded grass next to him, was not much use either.

The stone fence posts were the most useful.

Wilson was up on one of them in a second, lifting the spear just in time for it to slash the side of the attacking dog from hind leg to shoulder.

More accurately, William thought that was a dog. That thing was barking, roaring, howling, whining. He couldn’t really see it clearly at first.

Now, he saw the monster. It was the size of a pony, three rows of shark teeth barely contained in its open maw stretching shoulder to shoulder. Its unnerving white eyes were peeking through the mussed black fur. It barely looked like a dog.

“The hounds! Quick, climb the tree!”

William rolled to the side, grabbing the sword. One of the creatures pounced on him, but missed, howling in pain seconds later, having been cut with the transparent metal.

There was a spray of tar-like, rancid blood.

William looked around feverishly. The monsters were everywhere. There was no less than ten of them, fierce and ruthless in their desire to gut, bite and kill. Was this what came on the eighth day? Was this what Wilson was so worried about being missing?

The monsters were everywhere, and the closest trees were awfully far.

Not counting the spiky, dried-up, pitiful thing next to the stone circle.

William jumped up on the nearest fence post, managing to kick one of the hounds in the snout, and then took an impressive, beautiful leap towards the lowest branch.

That was a mistake.

It felt like a dozen nails piercing his palm. The thorns turned out to be a better protection for the tree than the sabre was for William.

He screamed in pain, in fear, but the terror was worse on the ground. Several hounds were raging bellow, thrown back by the piercing thorns yet still trying to bite William’s legs.

He struggled to overcome the pain, dangling in the air, internally cursing his height. He could feel the thorns cutting straight through his palms. 

Finally, he pulled himself up and even managed to get a leg over the branch. The pain was still there, piercing and sudden, but it was less than what he felt before. Then, he hooked an elbow over the smoother part of the branch, hoping not to lose his sword.

One of the dogs got lucky. It jumped up and latched onto William’s shoe.

Thankfully, the thing’s teeth didn’t pierce the thick leather. The shoe were bought in hopes of showing up to San-Francisco looking more like a performer and less like a vagrant, and the years have treated them kinder than expected. Yet feeling the pressure of the dog’s jaw clenching on was terrifying, and the weight of the hound was pulling him down, inch by inch.

The branch was bending at an alarming angle, dry wood splitting with a loud snap.

“Leave me alone!” William shouted, kicking at the hound. After several swings, the dog ended up crashing against the tree trunk.

The maw holding his boot hostage has let go. The dog made a terrible, pained whine. It couldn’t make it to the ground, hanging on the sharp thorns, as if nailed to the tree.

William perched on the branch, legs tucked underneath him. He was trying to see where Wilson was, and assess if there was a way to climb higher. Oh, how he regretted not putting on the chainmail!

It seemed his companion was struggling, too. Wilson was jumping post to post, battling the hound pack - and it was a losing battle. His trouser legs were torn, and the tops of the fence posts were red with blood. Chester the pumpkin fought as hard as it could. It was latched onto a hound’s side in an iron grip, desperate.

“Here!” William waved. “The tree’s too tall for them!”

Wilson turned, and it was the wrong time to do so.

The biggest hound in the pack, with its fur stark white - maybe with age, maybe by nature - had knocked him off the fence post. 

The spear was flung away.

Wilson fell on his back, and the hound jumped onto him with a terrible roar.

Only then did William truly realise how big the monster was. It looked like a mockery of humanity, the small, puny man being trampled by the beast.

Wilson grappled with the creature, grasping the fur by the sides of its maw, not letting the gnashing teeth near his neck. The creature’s claws were tearing at his vest. And then William saw something that he’d think was his eyes playing a trick on him, were he still nearsighted. 

Both Wilson’s hands and the scratches being torn into his body were getting frosted over. Covered in ice right before his eyes.

William shuddered, lurched forward, panicked, and the branch finally broke.

He fell right on top of one of the hounds. He hoped that it broke the monster’s spine, but there was no time to check.

Climbing the tree a second time was impossible: the remaining branches were too high up. William jumped one of the fence posts and then threw himself onto the pale creature, knocking it to the ground and plunging his sword deep into its neck. 

His body went numb, as if he’s just slammed into an iceberg. A few seconds went by.

The rest of the hounds were not at all stricken by their leader’s demise. What remained of the pack launched towards the humans lying on the ground, like any predators would. 

What else do predators do? Who gets attacked by the hungry wolves?

There was no time to swing the sabre again.

William wasn’t really good at anything. Even magic tricks. But he had one talent even Uncle Henry could recognize.

In that moment, WIlliam did what he really did best.

He leaped to his feet, turned around and ran.

Judging by the sounds, most of the pack was now after him, and he was racing through the woods, circling the trees and making loops, leading the hounds straight to the shore.

Maybe if he ended up in this world alone, he would die the very first day, not living to see the sunset. But Wilson’s lessons and almost a month of time - real-world time - taught him a lot. William was a good listener. That was an important quality for those working with an audience. Especially a violent, short-tempered one.

“Pengulls can be damn dangerous”.

Suddenly, he was out on the shore, and the dogs almost caught up to him. He crashed into the bird colony on the beach, slipping on a thin ice that was now covering the grass and ended up flying headfirst into the waves. 

The hounds were not quite that quick.

Standing up to his neck in the water, William was watching the carnage unfold. The only thing he felt was a tired satisfaction. There was nothing else.


	5. The Stone and the Flowers

“This salve has healed worse,” Wilson grumbled. “I think I’ll be alright by tomorrow morning. Or at least tomorrow evening. But until then, I don’t think I can be much help… At least where hands are concerned.”

He was sitting on the ground, leaning on a wide trunk of a pine tree. The wounds torn by the claws and fangs of the monstrous dogs were already covered in salve, and the worst of them were bandaged. William had to do both. Wilson just put his frostbitten, aching hands into the salve up to his wrists and waited.

“Are you sure you can move your fingers?”

“It’s been five minutes since you asked that question. The answer has not changed. Yes, I can. Barely.” Wilson winced, “not to mention how it feels to try.”

William was pacing back and forth on the edge of the small clearing they chose for the camp. The adrenaline was still thrumming in his blood, whispering for him to move, to run, to continue fighting, but the danger was gone. His palm hurt, having been pierced by the thorns of the tree. His whole body ached from the fall he took, but the worst was the small, annoying headache. It seemed to come from nowhere. It seemed to William that if he were to close his eyes and open them very quickly, the dark shapes and circles of black smoke would leave the space behind his eyelids.

Dancing before his eyes.

Like when the box played its awful tune.

No, that was nonsense… The danger was no more.

Except their talk on amputations from before could turn out to be prophetic.

“That’s also nonsense,” William told himself. “Prophecies aren’t real.”

He thought about what it would be like to survive in this nightmare world without hands and shuddered. No, that would be impossible. And besides, his companion may have been experienced, may have known how to keep his composure enough to perform surgery on himself, but really… what kind of a man, even being a scientist, would be determined or insane enough to cut off his own fingers?

“Look, Carter, could you postpone grass trampling until we’ve got time? There are still things to be done around here, you know.”

“Oh,” William said, startled, “of course...”

They’ve checked to see if there was anything useful left of the monsters - Wilson sternly refused to settle until it was done. Somehow, instead of meat and bodies, the only thing that remained of the fallen hounds was a puddle of thick, tar-like liquid. Wilson was angry.

He got very restless after that fight.

“It’s not much of a loss, their meat is really below average, especially when we’ve got the pengulls,” he said, staring at the puddle, angrily rubbing his palms together, trying to battle the frostbite. “But that this happened… It’s never been this way before. But then, the frost hounds only show up during winter, so… In any case, if all the monsters flow apart like rotten pudding, we’ll soon be dead from hunger.”

“Well, we could catch them and cut pieces off, then they won’t.” William attempted a joke, trying to ignore the growing headache. He picked up both their backpacks and patted his knee to call Chester. 

It limped closer, looking as proud and heroic as a pumpkin ever could.

Wilson lifted his head and looked at William.

“Yes. Not a bad idea.”

They settled closer to the shore, on a forest clearing - a small a patch of open space between the trees. The ground was covered with a warm layer of pine needles, fallen branches and general forest refuse. The seashore was quiet, open, its edge just a few steps from the clearing. The four remaining pengulls have disappeared eastwards, out of earshot, and the waves were silent. 

These four pengulls were all that was left of the flock. As for the rest... Provided they got rid of the murky tar, the pengull meat could be made into a great feast.

That’s what William was supposed to be working on. He’d already finished with everything else: the fuel for the campfire was out of Chester’s gut (the pumpkin’s saliva didn’t slow combustion at all, weirdly enough), the backpacks settled, and the sleeping bags unrolled. The stones were set for a fire pit.

Because fire was crucial. More important than even food.

Without food, you could last a few days, Wilson said. Hunger let you survive, however briefly, there was still hope.

There was no hope for survival in the dark.

Sure, they still had time before sundown, but what would be the point in taking that risk?

William hesitated for a moment, staring at the chainmail. Then, he picked up his sabre and left for the shore. Cutting meat in the camp could attract spiders, and, as Wilson once said, something even worse. That’s why every time they had a good hunt they’d set the ‘butcher shop’ out of the camp. 

According to Wilson, only a select few parts of a pengull were actually edible. Not counting the eggs that could be found in their nests, of course.

William hadn’t found any eggs, which was a profound disappointment, but the meat was still there. Nothing has tainted it.

Taking apart their catch, he thought back to what they’ve found in the muck that was left of the dogs. Wilson told him that hound teeth were a useful item, but the bones came apart with the meat, leaving only one thing completely untouched.

“A sapphire? This big?”

“I don’t know, Carter. I’m not a jeweller, and getting a microscope… I’ve told you about that. I call it a sapphire. Think about it: it’s shining, translucent-”

Wilson hissed. William was bandaging his wounds and accidentally tugged at the dressing a little too hard. Strangely, touching that hot, inflamed skin around the scratches, tears and frost burns made William shiver. He struggled to understand why. Squeamishness was, indeed, incompatible with survival, he remembered that well. And squeamishness had nothing to do with what he was feeling.

“...and it’s also deep blue in color.”

“What do we use it for?” William knew that the scientist could find a use for pretty anything found in this world of hunger and monsters.

“Nothing. Forget it, it’s useless. I’ve tried to cut a lense out of it, but it’s too firm. The pig king didn’t care for it either.”

“Those pig villagers had a king?”

“Forget it.”

William did forget about the pig king, but the sapphire was still on his mind. “Thinking about it,” he pondered, rinsing the pengull fillet in the seawater, “in the normal world that thing would fetch a fortune.” He could create his own extraordinary, unforgettable show and perform in the Gala. Buy the best second-hand props. No, even better, buy new props! Have some custom-made! Hire a lady assistant or two, with the low-cut glittering dresses and everything. Can there really be a good show without at least one assistant in a glittering dress? Even with just one, it’s much less stressful. The audience has no interest in watching the magician’s hands when there’s something much more pleasant to look at. Cover the whole city with posters! ‘Maxwell the Great, the King of All Magic!’

He dropped a piece of meat and had to poke about the ocean floor for a while, and then clean the piece from sand as well as muck.

No, William thought. It really would be much better to change that stage name.

***

Despite being fierce fighters, the pengulls were relatively small, and the amount of meat they amounted to was even smaller. William looked over what he collected and decided, with enough experience in mind, that it would last them both as long as three days. And that’s not considering that they still had some carrots and berries left. There was a meadow not far from there, and it was on meadows that the berry bushes grew most often. Along with the almost leafless shrubs with straight, sturdy branches Wilson could use to make seemingly anything. Except maybe a microscope. 

It was great kindling, too. William packed up the meat and decided to head forward along the shore. It would be wise to cut some of those branches and scout ahead in the process. Falling asleep next to spider dens wouldn’t do at all, and there was no time to check the area beforehand. Now, there was enough.

The thought of fighting alone sent shivers down William’s spine. Wilson was wounded, in no condition for battle. Even the pumpkin dragged all four of its short legs, and there was no second pengull flock around. 

He turned and saw the sun was slowly going down towards the water on the horizon, harsh daylight turning into a soft orange glow of sunset. His pace quickened. He had to be back before darkness fell.

There wasn’t a spider den in sight. There was a number of shrubs, though, hiding between the trees, and William hastily cut several thicker branches with the sword.

Gathering them up, he noticed the flowers.

The local flowers were… Useful. William never felt much love towards flowers, but the aroma of those particular ones would calm him down, even when his fears appeared rational. They mellowed even the bizarre feeling of sickness that came every time after eating a meal consisting of spider meat.

The flower petals tasted almost sweet, like mint, and the calming effect from them was even stronger.

Wilson shared a theory of the flowers being related to the opium poppy. “Especially since you - Maxwell, I mean, - so, Maxwell would always go around with a red poppy pinned to his lapel,” he’d said.

William decided not to argue.

It was better not to bother Wilson when he mentioned his mythical enemy. Not to give any unwanted associations. Not to… provoke.

But the flowers he saw there were different.

William looked at them and couldn’t keep in a laugh.

There was three of them, growing next to an unbelievably crooked tree. The flowers looked as if they were taken off a piece of wallpaper. Old wallpaper. Even the color, rusty and browned, reminded him of the faded silhouettes on the walls of the corridor leading to the living room of his childhood home. He liked to stare at them back then, listening to the posh wailing coming from the closed door. His mother was having one of her “seances”, talking to ghosts, and he was not to enter.

The world around him was twisted beyond belief, William knew that. But the feeling of danger was so faint, so distant. He’d seen these before, stared at them countless times-

Once his fingers touched the first flower, the brown petals burst into a cloud of dust.

William sneezed once, then again and again. His hand jerked away, and he cradled it to his chest, panicked, trying to assess the damage. He managed to get it unscathed out of the battle with the hounds, and for it to happen now, in such a stupid, childish way...

His hand was fine after all. He brought at his trembling fingers closer to his eyes, out of force of habit. His vision was better than it used to be now.

His hand was fine. Even the dust was gone.

The flower itself was nowhere to be seen either. William even swept his hands through the grass, and for a moment it felt as if his fingers passed through a shadow of some kind. Just a moment, and then the feeling was gone.

Along with the headache, he noted absent-mindedly.

When he came back, Wilson has finished wrapping his fingers in bandages. He was leaning on the tree again, looking like a half-blood mummy. 

“You’ve got some sticks? Not bad at all. You plan on setting up a drying rack?”

“Yes.” William was putting the loot in its place. It was getting dark. The fire was almost set, it only lacked a spark to light it. That was truly an assuring thought.

“Higgsbury, listen… have you ever seen some, uh, brown flowers around here?”

“A couple of times, yes. My vision got all blurry when I was near them, and they are no more use than sapphires, what with falling apart at the slightest touch. Have you seen any?”

“Yes, not far from the shrubbery.”

“You haven’t tried to pick any, I hope? I’ve spent half a day rolling around hallucinating after I’ve tried that last.”

“N- No.”

“We probably won’t survive the night if you go crazy,” Wilson said nonchalantly. “I’m no help if you need a fighter, as I’ve already said.”

William gulped. He was working on lighting the fire. For the first time ever he was glad that Wilson was behind his back.

“There aren’t any spiders in the vicinity. I’ve checked.”

He was trying to understand what state he was even in. What if the hallucinations have already started? What if he wasn’t next to the fire pit in the camp, what if he was still sitting next to the flowers, and the terrible monster that comes in the dark would snatch him up the second night finally falls?

There was a spark. The dry branches caught fire, spreading the heat to the firewood. The small piece of charcoal in the center was suddenly aflame, like an enormous match being lit, and a second later the campfire was all light and warmth.

“That’s good news.” There was rustling. Wilson shifted, trying to get comfortable. “It’s getting colder, isn’t it?”

William touched the flame with a tip of his finger and barely kept himself from jumping up in pain.

No, this was no hallucination… This was real.

“Not really, no,” he said, much more confident. He settled down on top of his sleeping bag, a piece of meat in his hand. “Maybe you’re running a fever? How are you feeling?”

Darkness fell as they finished their supper.

Then, it started snowing.

***

William sat close to the campfire, looking like a bird with its feathers fluffed to withstand the cold. The suit jacket was thrown over his shoulders - a small margin of warmth against the freezing air.

The wave of cold came unexpected, bringing along a silent, heavy snowfall. Wilson had finished cussing out the circumstances a while before. Now, he was lying on the sleeping bag, powerless and unmoving. Stunned. The pumpkin named Chester was sleeping by his side, its bandaged legs tucked under its round body.

It was obvious William would have to stay awake all night, keeping the fire going. Wilson was wounded and ill, probably running a fever after all. If he lost consciousness... 

God knows what would happen to the fire.

The flames were weak under the snow. William tossed a small piece of charcoal into the circle and smiled at the warm, fiery spark - the heart of the flame beating stronger. He reached blindly into the dark behind him, searching for the pile of charcoal hidden from wayward sparks under the wet pine needles. 

The pine needles were all he found. After finally grabbing a coal, he realised it was cold like an icicle.

The snow must have covered the pile of coal, too. Him, Wilson and the pumpkin were snug under the protection of the thick evergreen branches, but these weren’t enough to shield the fire or the drying rack - now just a silhouette in the dark.

In his defense, nobody knew this would happen.

Even Wilson, scientific genius and master survivalist, was sure that winter would only come in ten days.

William was going to toss the piece of coal into the fire and move the rest. Then, he realised the thing in his hand was no coal piece.

It was the sapphire.

A second went by. William had moved the coal after all, feeding the fire one more piece. This time the resulting flash didn’t capture his attention.

He was looking at the sapphire.

The gem was cool in his hands. It shone and sparkled, perfectly cut, fit for a crown - if a crown could fit the stone. William turned it over, captivated by the glistening firelight caught in the facets. The edges seemed sharp enough to cut.

“The hell are you staring at?” a voice rasped to his left. It was close. Too close.

It hit him, already too late: he didn’t go to “his” side of the campfire this time. It was too warm under the evergreen, and walking into the depths of the blizzard was unthinkable.

“The sapphire,” he said. “It’s a beautiful gemstone. Did it really lie inside that monster?”

“Of course it did,” Wilson grumbled. “What’s gotten you so surprised?”

“Everything,” he said. It was a truthful answer. “It’s easier to count the things that seem normal here.”

The firelight sparkled and shone on the gemstone facets. William admired it. He forgot all about what of a fortune it cost. There was no way to sell it in this world, anyway.

Wilson made a vague hum. It sounded disapproving.

“Haven’t heard that before.”

“I didn’t like it here since the first day.”

The sparkles danced along the gemstone edges. Somehow, to him it looked like a puzzle, a lot of small pieces tied together into one twisting, complicated shape. If he just tilted it the right way...

“If you didn’t like it, you’d make this world… closer to normal.”

The stone in William’s fingers stilled abruptly. The sparkling lights kept rolling forward, following the momentum, then came back.

“I’m not Maxwell, Higgsbury,” William said, tentatively. He held the stone with his left hand, reaching for the sword with his right. “It’s me, Carter. William Carter. We’re travelling together, remember?”

“That’s a great trick.” Wilson mumbled, turning over. He stared upwards, arms spread far. Chester hopped away from under his side, almost getting squashed. “That’s your greatest magic trick, Maxwell. And now you don’t like it yourself?”

The pumpkin sniffled resentfully and settled against William’s leg.

“I wouldn’t know how to do something like that,” William said softly. The pumpkin was lying right on the hilt of his sabre. “I’m just a street magician, and a beginner at that. The best I can do is pulling a rabbit out of a hat.”

“Tell me, pal…” Wilson continued on, “about the rabbits… you must have created them first, didn’t you, when building all this out of dust? Why are they… so scary, why the do the red eyes glow... Why the does the black fur move?”

“That’s impossible.” William was starting to panic. Wilson’s hand, covered in pale bandages instead of the familiar black wrappings, was almost touching his leg. 

“And those… shadows, why would you give them teeth? Why did you do that, pal?”

“I’m not Maxwell. I’m not. Higgsbury, wake up, you’re ill, you’re delirious. Higgsbury!“

“Didn’t you have enough  _ there _ , Maxwell the magician,” Wilson rasped. William saw the lines of his face sharpen, shadows dark against the sickly pale, darkness flooding every hollow, pooling around his eyes. “Why did you make this world? Why did you take me here? You promised me answers - where are my answers, demon? There are only questions here, thousands, millions, billions of questions!”

William scrambled to pack some snow into his palm and carefully reached for his companion.

“Why did you give them fangs,” Wilson uttered, and his face twisted further. William touched his forehead, and it was burning like the branches in the fire pit. He tried lifting some snow to it, fingers trembling, but Wilson shoved his hands away.

The man couldn’t put up much of a fight, William knew. Couldn’t even hold an axe with those hands.

There was nothing to fear, yet William’s heart ached with a strange, unfamiliar terror melted together with pity.

“What are you doing?” Wilson shouted, jolting, suddenly trying to get up. “Why are you doing this? Why did you make winter? Wasn’t the rest enough for you? You demon, monster of dust and ash, you goddamn bastard, why did you make all of this?”

His feverish determination wouldn’t last long anyway, but William still held him in place, then tried to make him lay back down. The man wouldn’t come back if he’d let him run off into the dark.

Wilson covered his face with his bandaged hands. His elbow made a sharp line in the wet layer of pine.

“We’re going to die, aren’t we, Maxwell? Answer me, pal. Aren’t we going to die tonight?”

William was silent for a moment.

“No,” he said quietly. “It will be okay. Nobody is going to die.”

“The fire will go out,” a whisper came from behind the bandages. “Winter kills the fire, the darkness and the cold bring the monster… Just the claws on those hands, and whisper, and rustle… And the wind… And the gnashing teeth in the darkness.”

“Nobody is coming for us,” William said, putting a steadying hand on his companion’s shoulder. “I’ll keep the fire going until dawn.”

“Sharp teeth in the shadows.” Wilson slowly lowered his hands. His eyes were closed. “The creature flying in the darkness.”

“Don’t worry, Higgsbury… No shadows with teeth here. No creatures, either. It’s okay. Sleep, I’ll look after the fire.”

Wilson blinked.

“You will?” he said weakly, turning to face the flames. The outburst seemed to have tired him out.

William shivered - Wilson shifted closer and put his burning forehead on William’s thigh, arm stretching across the man’s legs in a clumsy parody of a hug. Chester growled on the other side when his bandaged fingers grasped the pumpkin’s fur.

“Tell me, pal…” he said under his breath, almost too quiet to hear, “why would you… really…”

“Sleep, Wilson.” William stroked his hair, tentatively. “I’ll take care of things.”

He didn’t feel as cold now, surrounded with warmth on both sides. The sparkling lights were dancing on the gemstone edges again. William tried to move as little as possible, tossing a coal or some branches into the fire from time to time, but mostly captivated by the strange puzzle. 

Something was close, he was sure of it. Watching the light roll off the edges awakened a strange inspiration within him. The gemstone was cut exquisitely, but the facets weren’t just on the outside, they were on the inside, too, and if only he could tie the sparkling lights together, make the puzzle click in his hands...

The firelight and the sparks in the sapphire rolled into one and suddenly, the edge was bent and distorted.

William lifted his head.

The grey dawn was breaking. Another water droplet rolled off the evergreen branch and landed on the stone, splashing against the same edge as before. 

The snow fell all night, but now it has turned into rain. 

And the rain was warm.


	6. The Pocketwatch

Wilson was convinced the winter could still start over. Something similar has happened in the past: a night filled with hale and freezing cold, and then a thaw in the morning. Before it happened once a cycle, but nothing was certain anymore.

“This world is broken,” he explained grimly, “anything could happen now.”

For example, the temperature could get below the usual ten degrees, or unpleasant but bearable near-zero. It could lower to numbers that both mr. Celsius and mr. Fahrenheit agreed on being completely unsuited for human life. 

It was better to be ready for that. There probably wouldn’t be another miracle.

William didn’t tell his companion about the sapphire.

First and foremost because he couldn’t find it.

He remembered leaving it on the ground, and afterwards it was nowhere to be found. It was such a big gemstone, such a bright color, it seemed impossible to miss on the dark layer of pine, and yet… The only thing he did find was a wet spot, like from a puddle of water, at the same place the stone was before. And there was no way a gem could melt like an icicle.

William still remembered how cold it was, how heavy. Remember the firelight shining through the facets.

He remembered bringing them all together.

The spider salve has performed a miracle once again. Wilson’s hands way have looked a but creepier, but he could bend most of his fingers (except the two on his right hand) just fine.

As soon as he was sure of that, it was time to move.

“We’ll need a full-fledged alchemy engine later on,” he said. He was crouched next to the drying rack, inspecting it with a critical eye.

The snow, the frost and the thaw didn’t do the pengull meat any favours, but leaving it on the rack was pretty much pointless anyway. The travelers were packing up, ready to move along.

William suspected that what motivated that decision wasn’t really rational thought, but the habit humanity inherited from its animal ancestors. The habit of leaving a place that once threatened them, even if the danger was gone.

And he wouldn’t say for certain it was.

On the other hand, he wouldn’t say there was no danger ten steps ahead in any direction.

“A  _ what  _ engine?”

They were packing up. The plan was to walk along the shore towards the meadow William saw the day before.

“An alchemy engine, Carter. Stop nitpicking, it’s just a joke name. We’ll need it to convert some things into others. To make something more complex than a spear or a backpack.”

William rolled up his sleeping bag, trying to fit it so that the radio would be easy to get out. It was still stuck through his backpack, and William didn’t plan on changing that.

The backpack has lightened considerably. After the hound attack William decided to wear the chainmail, just in case. He had no idea if it would protect him getting bitten or clawed, but one thing was certain: metal, however transparent, was better protection than the torn shirt and jacket.

“I thought alchemy was just magical thinking. You’re supposed to be on the side of science, right?”

William turned back to take one last look at the clearing.

He couldn’t see the sapphire anywhere, no matter how hard he looked. It just wasn’t there.

As if the stone had actually melted.

“God, your sense of humor is abysmal… I also called it that because to build it you’d need a metal with characteristics of-”

William had completely lost track of the conversation at that point. Wilson stared at him for a second, then threw his hands up.

“Basically, to create it you’d need gold.”

The warm, humid wind rustled the grass as they walked through the meadow. Torn, heavy, scattered clouds moved across the sky. Every time William looked up, he felt as if a spring storm would soon be upon them.

They stopped a couple of times to pick berries off one bush or another, Wilson even tried to chase a gobbler, but it managed to get away.

“That’s fine… We’ll make an actual long-range weapon,” he said, grasping the spear, “once we build the engine.”

The only “long-range weapon” William could think of (except maybe a bow) was the boomerang, like what Australian natives used. Even a bow seemed easier to make. In any case, William had no experience to rely on there - he hasn’t done anything similar as a child, and he hasn’t met his peers enough back then, so there was nobody to teach him.

The snow has melted away. Before they stepped on the incline it was bearable, but once the grass under their feet turned darker and thinner, it felt as if they were walking through a mud bog. 

“And warm clothes, Carter. Jackets, coats, sweaters. Spider web makes a great material for fabric, surprisingly enough. And if we find a herd of beefalo it will be a solution to most of our problems… If we find gold first.”

“We are looking a lot like prospectors. More alaskan than californian, even.”

“Quit being a downer.”

William was silently cursing himself. He’d sworn off angering Wilson again, and once again couldn’t keep his mouth shut. That was one of the sins that would, according to uncle Henry, spell out his downfall. It was even higher on the list than clumsiness and overconfidence.

Wilson hadn’t mentioned the previous night’s events. Maybe he just didn’t remember: William knew that many people didn’t remember what they were doing in throes of insanity. Maybe there was another reason. After all, if William himself woke up hugging a pumpkin and a man he occasionally tried to kill, he’d feel embarrassed and hard-pressed to talk about it.

“...there are several ways to get gold. The more natural one is to break a boulder with a gold vein. Maybe you’ve seen one before, they have yellowish stripes. But then sometimes there are gold nuggets just lying around, so watch your step… Your step, not the sky, Carter, nothing’s going to fall out of there in this world.”

“Sure,” William said, startled. “I just thought it might start raining soon.”

“Then we need to hurry up and-”

Wilson stopped mid-sentence. William understood why. Breath hitched in his throat, too.

They were standing on a precipice. The ground a dozen feet below was dark, a foreboding, misty valley stretching out as far as they could see. There, drowning in cold fog - a graveyard.

“Wait, that’s…”

William still couldn’t find the words to react. He turned to his companion and saw that the man was looking back, delighted.

“We just got incredibly lucky!”

***

“Well, yes, I digged up a couple of these once. What’s the big deal?”

“Oh my god,” William whispered. He didn’t listen, slowly walking past the row of graves. 

Their placement was chaotic. Most stood alone, but from time to time there’d be cluster of tombstones, like animals huddled together. 

“Or like a flock of pengulls,” William thought. He shuddered.

Wilson, on the other hand, seemed so joyful and carefree that William decided that he was criminally insane after all.

“This is a graveyard, Higgsbury! Who could be buried in these graves if there are no people in this world except for us, as you said? Pigs?” 

“No, pigmen don’t bury their dead, what they do is more of a primitive ritual burning. There’s  _ nobody  _ buried there, Carter, calm down. It’s all fiction, another trick, a kind of… decoration that Maxwell decided to adorn his world with. And one more way to scare me, of course. There are no bodies inside.”

“How do you know? Did you- did you try to dig up the graves?”

“Oh, Carter, what a narrow mind you have. I’m astonished how a starting point like this lead to you future self. Watch your step, there are gold nuggets scattered left and right on graveyards. And get a move on, the place really takes a toll on your sanity if you stay too long.”

“That must have already happened to you,” William though silently, rubbing his temple. Another sudden headache.

These were real graves - some older, some newer. The graveyard would look completely normal, if not for the creeping fog. Except William noticed that no graves except one had any signs of flowers or maintenance. Some of the engravings were too faded, but several tombstones still had epitaphs to read. 

‘Ji...my “Woody” Waters. Confident … tree of life, and …’

‘Willow V… a spark in the darkness’.

‘Abigail and Wendy Wordsworth. Came into the world together, couldn’t bear t… wait alone.’

William dragged his feet past the abandoned graves. He had an epiphany. Everything was… understandable. More obvious.

And many times worse than he thought.

Of course, William was no terrible demon-sorcerer. Maxwell never really existed, it was just an absurd figment of a psychopath’s imagination… They were never really in any strange, abandoned world, but in a… say, a national park… a twisted, strange, game - extraordinary in its own way - that Wilson Higgsbury set up. All of those animals looked like the result of some evil experiment… A man such as Wilson probably wouldn’t be scared of sinking to the level of performing vivisection… but even he couldn’t get rid of the graves.

But what about the weather and the time of day? Did he fix William’s vision, too? And how did he know the stage name?

God, what nonsense! He never knew the stage name! Maxwell’s demon, that’s what he said back at the very beginning - it was a name of a scientific experiment, that’s it! William was just unlucky enough to choose the same name as some long dead scientist had!

“What are you talking about?” Wilson called. He was searching the ground ten steps westward. “Are you okay over there?”

William was terrified. He realised that he said the last few words out loud. 

And who know what else he said.

He covered his mouth with his hands.

Why did he speak at all? What was wrong with him? Could insanity be contagious?

William feverishly grasped on the sword hilt. No… The transparent metal, the sapphire… the hounds… no. Neither the greatest of scientists, nor the greatest of magicians could create all of this... Make him think all of this was real. 

He stumbled on a pebble. It got knocked away and hit one of the tombstones.

The pebble shined golden. It was a third of the size of a human fist.

William has only seen gold nuggets like these in picture books.

He felt numb and mute. Nothing seemed believable anymore. He picked up the pebble, and it was too heavy to just be a piece of rock.

Then, he saw the tombstone that the pebble hit before. 

‘Wil… ...e…’

Lower, where the surname was supposed to be, there was mostly nothing. The empty spaces weren’t just faded but broken. The entire lower part of the stone seemed like it was systematically destroyed with a chisel.

Or slashed by terrible claws, time and again.

Similar marks covered the first two words, leaving just a few letters.

“That’s a big one. Good.”

William shivered. Wilson came close and was now standing behind his back, looking at the gold nugget clutched in William’s hand.

“I’ve found three. Just two more and the engine is as good as ours. What are you- oh. Wil… ...e… looks like one of mine again. Once I’ve found a graveyard that consisted of nothing but graves with my name on them. Let’s go, there’s no point in standing around.”

“Or mine,” William said. His voice was suddenly rasped.

Wilson waited a second, then hummed in agreement.

“Or yours, yes. But that’s not very likely. I’ve seen statues of you, but never a grave.”

William shivered again - Wilson put a hand on his shoulder.

“If you’d like to,” he said, softly, “we could dig it up. There’s time.”

William gulped.

“What for?”

“Fear always comes from ignorance,” Wilson continued, voice still soft, still calm. “It’s empty, you’ll see it for yourself and you’ll feel better. In the worst case scenario we find some rubbish. If we’re very,  _ very _ lucky we’ll find an amulet. Digging just to search for it is not a wise decision.”

“I- I’ve never dug up a grave before.”

“That’s no complicated task,” Wilson grinned. “We’ll just need a shovel.”

An hour later - William still couldn’t believe it only took an hour, - they were digging, and the shovels looked a lot like regular tools.

  
  


Wilson really did know how to make things out of other things. Even without an alchemy engine.

The clouds were covering the sun, but it seemed like they still had a few hours until sundown. The light has dimmed even more. The rain was coming, and it would be a downpour. 

“The first ‘grave’ I’ve dug up didn’t have my name on it, but I had to make sure that other people have - or haven’t - been here. Then I’ve tried ‘my’ graves a couple of times, but soon gave up. It’s much better to keep your strength up for more worthy pursuits. All the graves are empty. Every single one.”

“I’d never have the guts to do something like that.”

“Oh, quit it. Wouldn’t it be interesting to dig up your own grave? Or a grave of a person you know, if you found one here? You mentioned your uncle, for example.”

“Uncle Henry? If I found his grave, I’d put an extra six feet of ground on top of it, this world or any other.”

His shovel suddenly dropped further than expected, taking out what seemed like fresh soil.

And a bundle of something with it.

“Woah, we’ve hit the jackpot. Carter, check it out!”

For a moment, William was scared that the bundle had bones in it. Thankfully, it was too small - maybe two fistfuls of fabric tied around with a string.

Inside was a handful of regular shirt buttons, a bunch of wires looped together and rusted through, and uncle Henry’s pocketwatch.

‘Speak of the devil’.

William sat on the edge of the hole the dug in the ground.

Oh, sure… leaving for America, he thought that people like uncle Henry could reach you even across the ocean. But across time and space in another world?

Another world? When did he start believing Higgsbury’s delusions again?

Uncle Henry’s pocketwatch was lying right in front of him. Somehow there were two of them. Identical copies, just as he remembered the pocketwatch, the gold chain, the ruby lid and all. 

“See? Two amulets, no less. I can’t tell you if they really work, but… why not have an extra layer of security if you can and it takes no struggle to do so?”

William knew that the only real thing about the pocketwatch was the chain. Made of real gold, that is. The pocketwatch itself was gilded. And the ruby in the lid was no ruby either, just plain red glass.

“They work?”

“Well, technically they have some way of helping heal wounds, even severe ones.”

Uncle Henry would flaunt the pocketwatch shamelessly, and William never understood why. Couldn’t he see that anyone who knew anything about expensive things would cringe at how cheap it was, and anyone who had good taste would cry bloody tears from one look at it? 

“They work?”

“I understand, this sounds like standard magical thinking.Yet I’ve had these on twice: once I had grappled with three swarms of bees at once and another time there was a cyclops deer. Both time I thought I was a goner, even lost consciousness, but then I just…”

“This is uncle Henry’s pocketwatch!” William shouted, leaping to his feet. “This is his goddamned old watch! It can’t heal anything!”

“Carter, calm down…”

“It’s his watch!”

“Why a ‘watch’?” Wilson asked, a bit of curiosity in his voice.

No, more than a bit.

It was pure curiosity.

Nothing else.

“Because,” William hissed, “you can check time using it!”

He grabbed one of the pocketwatches off the torn fabric and, feeling the soil stuck beneath his nails, pushed a hidden button on the side.

When William was little, the watch was completely off-limits to him. Obviously, he sneaked it out dozens of times just out of spite, and learned how to open the lid perfectly.

This time the red glass lid clicked and opened, just like before.

William felt his hands go weak.

He never liked uncle Henry’s pocketwatch, and that’s to put it mildly. But that was just a watch.

This, on the other hand...

He stared at the dial. It rusted through in three separate places, and the clockwork should have been visible through the holes. Instead, there was thick soil of a freshly dug grave filling the inside.

The only remaining hand was still moving, counting seconds.

It was slower than it was supposed to be, but it moved nonetheless, carrying a sticky shadow brighter than the hand itself. Struggling to get past the holes. It was moving, slowly but steadily.

The pocketwatch smelled of rot. William felt chills go down his spine.

He tossed the thing to the ground, disgusted.

“God, I had no idea you could open it… It really is a pocketwatch… Carter, where are you going?”

“I will not spend another minute in this place!”

“Watch your step… or something like that will happen, yes. Are you in one piece? Carter? Carter, can you hear me? Carter?”

William screamed.

Despite his formidable height, he just couldn’t get out of the hole. Wilson reached down, and William grabbed his hand, leaping out faster than a rabbit.

He couldn’t blame Wilson this time.

It could have been a game, a devilish, perfect, terrifying magic trick. A very good trick, a trick beyond all belief… but it would be really hard to dig up all the graves around without making a single sound and constantly staying out in the open.

“Run,” Wilson said, dryly. He was looking at something behind William’s back. He didn’t need to ask twice.

The fog was rising around them, covering the view and getting thicker by the second. William felt teeth slide off his shoulder.

He screamed in terror and yanked the sabre out of its scabbard. If he was going to die, he’d die hard.

The world slipped around him, and suddenly he couldn’t see Wilson, or the road to run on.

The fog condensed into a long, slim figure and pushed him. The chainmail withstood that attack, too.

The dark smoke danced through the tatters of white. It twisted and turned, it reached out to him with clawed fingers and opened a thousand gaping maws.

Gnashing teeth in the dark.

_ “Ready, Maxie? We’ve got a full house out there. Let’s show them what real magic looks like!” _


	7. The Platform Thing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translator's notes:  
Due to the fact that the Russian version of Don't Starve has a very interesting translation, and that translation was the base of this story, the Wooden Thing is called a platform and assumed to be made of metal in this chapter and all the others. I hope this helps avoid any confusion. Enjoy!

His head was splitting with pulsing pain.

“...so please, do me a favour and actually wear it next time. You won’t die from doing that, and you might get a second chance. Sure, I don’t know how it works yet, but I can try and formulate a theory later if you really want one.”

William was lying on a cold, smooth surface. The sky above was an inky shade, but the rain didn’t come yet.

“Did you hear…” he said, struggling. “Higgsbury… there was a woman, she said…”

“There aren’t any women around here.”

“But I… heard…”

“It would be much better if you heard me, especially when I told you not to use the armor and the sword at the same time. It seems in those proportions they could mess up any mind, including yours. The dose makes the poison, don’t you remember?”

William tried to get a grip on the ground. It really was smooth and slippery.

Wilson was sitting next to him, leaning on the pile of their backpacks. His lower arm was on Chester’s back, as if resting on an armchair. 

He was twiddling a wilted red flower, an expression of boredom on his face. As far as William remembered, their dwindling supply of those “soothing plants” was a few days old.

“Where’s your spear?” William asked, numbly.

“It broke. It’s the first time I’ve seen such a thing - an entity imitating a ghost. It’s material enough, and the spear hurts it as much as any other mortal thing.”

William gulped. His throat felt parched.

He was sitting on a floor of polished marble. It was made of vast black and white squares, like an enormous chess board.

“Where are we?”

“In relative safety,” Wilson shrugged. “The “ghost” fell apart, and I see no other monsters so far.”

“No, I-” William stood up, leaning on a crumbling piece of marble. It was as cold as the floor. Could it have been a column once?

“Are these ruins of some kind?”

“Carter, I swear to god. When will you learn? There can be no ruins here. For ruins to exist, something has to be destroyed first. These? These appeared this way, all at once. It’s a part of the landscape. A decoration. Here, eat some - Wilson got up and gave him the flower. - It will get rid of the hallucinations.”

William took the wilted, dried-up plant, and bit on it without much thinking. He regretted that decision. It felt like chewing on tooth powder. 

Then he took off the transparent chainmail. It wasn’t that he really believed it had such a dangerous effect together with the sword. He just had no desire to find out if it did, and he’d rather not be left weaponless, so the chainmail was soon stuffed inside the backpack, along with everything else.

“Actually,” Wilson continued, helping him with the shoulder straps, “this place isn’t our best bet. The place is almost completely barren, there are often spiders around, sometimes there are mechanical chess pieces. They only valuable thing here is marble and maybe spider silk. Living here… I wouldn’t do that. I propose we search for a better place to camp out further ahead.

William looked back.

Just a few yards away the checkerboard pattern clashed with the mossy ground, still shrouded in mist. 

“Proposition approved. The farther from here we go the better.”

He’s probably right, William thought, trying to get a petal out of his teeth. Every breath felt cold - It seemed the dried flowers had a stronger mint component than fresh one - but the headache was almost gone.

Wilson was right, there was nobody else there, and that voice was just a hallucination.

But it seemed so real.

What was more, William caught himself trying to remember where he could have hear it before.

The voice didn’t just seem real, it seemed familiar. It was joyful, earnest, and very much beautiful. It must have belonged to someone not older than twenty five.

William conjured up the voices of all the women he’s ever spoken to for more than a minute - it was not a long list. Not a single one fit.

However, he could have met her later. Any year of the more than two decades he couldn’t remember. That must have been it.

Especially if that word she said was her was addressing him.

Maxwell.

He stumbled again, this time falling over and hitting his knees on the marble, which hurt. He swore aloud and yanked his foot free, pushing the obstacle away with the other.

The hit made a sound, a sort of metallic rumble. William stifled a scream. There was a massive iron jaw just a few inches away, rusty and jagged.

“Don’t worry, it’s all junk”. Wilson turned after the sound, and came closer. Just two hits of the axe, and the wires William got tangled in were severed. “If it was in working order it would’ve attacked already.”

There was a large pile of scrap metal on the floor, wrapped with wires and filled with small gears and bolts that fell apart at the touch. Some of that spilled on the polished marble like blood as the axe hit the rusted panel on the side.

“The metal is useless, which is a pity. Every time these break something like that happens - rust eats through everything at a moment’s notice. It’s a miracle to find a few gears. You can’t imagine how disappointed I was the first time it happened. I was counting on a supply of material, if not enough for a shack then maybe for appliances… I was even thinking of smelting it… But no, my dear Higgsbury, back to the paleolithic, and no looking back!”

Columns of different heights sizes jutted out of the massive chess board, reaching up into nothingness. They were sleek and white, reminding him of ancient Greece. Next to them were cones and cylinders of pink marble, reminiscent of trees in a child’s drawing. A few yards to the left there was a spiky tree growing right out of the ground, its roots cracking and twisting apart the marble. It looked just like the one next to the circle where they found the strange box.

The dents from the thorns were barely visible on his palms, thanks to the spider salve. Still, William rubbed them with his knuckles, briefly. His body may have adapted to this place’s speeds, but his mind hasn’t.

It’s no wonder, he thought, that Wilson’s mind is like that… Had anyone else been in his place, it would be much worse. There was something holding him up.

‘Billions of questions’, William remembered suddenly. And no answers.

  
  


“Do you like chess?” Wilson asked.

“Not particularly, no,” William said, still lost in thought. “I’m not a good player, anyway. I know the rules, but that’s about it, unless... maybe if I had more practice.”

He felt somewhat embarrassed and tried to stifle the ridiculous excuses he was bound to come up with. It almost successful. 

“I didn’t know many people who played.”

William learned the rules of the game around fourteen, trying to ‘discipline the mind’, as his teacher advised, but that was it. His mother showed his lackluster skills off to her guests a couple of times, but they were interested in the more ephemeral matters. It just so happened that the only person who wanted to play chess with him was uncle Henry. And even then, it was only when he was in the mood to ‘play a round or two’, as he said.

“Why’d you want to know?”

Wilson shrugged again.

“World theories, nothing more. Pointless curiosity.”

“What about you? Do you like chess?”

Not these - he wanted to add a second later. Normal, ordinary chess that don’t try to eat you alive.

And that you don’t want to eat alive either.

“I used to like chess puzzles when I was young, but then got bored. It’s probably more interesting with a real opponent, but I couldn’t tell you - never had a chance to confirm that.”

“We can play some time, if you’d like to,” William said, surprising himself. “Draw a board, get some pebbles… Or even line off a part of this board, you know, eight by eight.” 

  
  


There was a moment of silence.

“Thank you, but no,” Wilson said dryly. “I’ve had enough games with you, on this board or any other. Let’s pick up the pace. There is usually savanna close to the chess fields. Hopefully, this world’s topography didn’t go crazy yet.”

He turned and went forward. William had nothing to do but adjust the backpack on his shoulders and follow suit.

For some reason, he felt angry.

Several minutes later, the radio behind his back hummed to life. Loudly.

William yanked the radio stick out of his backpack like a sword, not bothering to take it off. He secretly felt proud of his inventory management.

“Higgsbury, there is another piece nearby!”

“My god, Carter! Aren’t you tired of this?”

“Can’t you hear the howling? We could be co close!”

This time Wilson didn’t answer. He just started walking faster. The radio sounded again, and this time its cry seemed louder.

“Higgsbury, come on! We’ve got to find it!”

The pumpkin stopped to sniff at another marble column, and Wilson whistled to call it, but didn’t even turn his head.

William picked up the pace, swinging the radio in wide circles. He hoped to hear the change in pitch. There weren’t any fence posts in sight, not counting the columns. Maybe, the piece was surrounded by a circle of columns?

“Higgsbury!”

The radio’s howl became unbearably shrill, but the next step brought the sound back down. William stared at Wilson’s back for a second, then turned and followed the divining rod, determined.

What he found couldn’t be a piece of the gate. He wasn’t sure how to describe it, but picking it up and taking it with them would certainly be impossible.

There was a rusty circular platform. It looked like a dining table with no legs. It was nailed to the marble.

The radio stopped its howling the second he touched the circle’s side with the tip of his shoe. So that was the thing he was supposed to find, but…

“Higgsbury!” William shouted out into the marble chess jungle. “There’s some kind of… stage! It has gaps and wires! Is it a part of the gate?”

He waited for a couple of seconds, captivated by the strange sight. The platform was covered with deep lines and irregular gaps, coming to a rectangular dent in the center. If this was a part of the gate, it must have been the frame. For now it was empty, waiting for the door to be installed and opened.

There was no answer. Not a couple seconds later, nor ten, nor…

“Higgsbury?”

  
  


The thought of getting lost there pierced him like a pair of fangs. Sure, they did go two separate ways before, even being apart for a while, but they always agreed on doing it. And agreed on a place to meet up again. 

William rushed about the platform. He didn’t know which way to run. His feet slipped on the smooth marble.

It couldn’t be, he just made a couple of steps in a different direction, walked maybe a dozen yards, the landscape is flat as a table, there is just nowhere to-

Everywhere he looked, there was nothing but the scattered columns, the sharp silhouettes of one tree or another and the slick marble squares covering the uneven ground. Far in the distance, there was a misty blue ribbon of the forest and beyond that - just the sky.

“Higgsbury! Higgsbury, god damn it! Chester! Wilson! Where-”

A figure emerged from a nearby hill, as if appearing out of thin air. It was Wilson - a thin, messy-haired silhouette against the backdrop of the sky, with his heavy backpack and the shaggy pumpkin jumping around by his side.

“This way, quick!” Wilson shouted, throwing the backpack on the ground and grabbing the axe.

William recoiled. If this was another manic episode, he’d be in trouble.

He freed himself from the straps of his backpack and took out the sabre. It was crucial to find the chainmail and get it on as soon as possible. God, why did he listen to this man and take it off!

William only just managed to open the bag when something sighed right behind him, puffed like a bellows. Then his neck was burned by a surge of steam.

He screamed and turned around, trying to jump away. Instead of the smooth marble, his feet clanked against something metallic and rusty, and then the surface ended abruptly, taking him down with it.

William fell, stumbling against the dent in the platform’s center. The sabre was knocked out of his hands and fell to the ground a few feet away with a thin, almost glass-like ringing.

There was an imposing mechanic figure looming over him. It had the hunched shoulders of an old man, wrapped in a long cloak made of a metal sheet. It was eaten away by rust, exposing the struggling gears and gizmos inside, steam flowing through like blood. The machine’s singular eye looked massive in the middle of the “head” crowned with a tall glass lamp - a parody of a mitre.

The thin metallic coil inside of it shined - first faintly, then brighter by the second. The paint cracked around the single drawn pupil of the eye. It gave William a blank stare.

The petal-like metal parts of the eye split with a metal screech, and the pupil William thought was fake moved, flashing purple. As if the mechanical monster’s gaze moved.

The pupil was suddenly bigger.

William felt the heat scald his cheek. If he was to survive, he’d probably have a burn mark there. Thankfully, he managed to dodge and roll off the other side of the platform. Feeling every single gap and line in it with his aching sides in the process.

The machine puffed and creaked, turning.

The sabre was even farther from him than before, William cursed himself for moving in the wrong direction.

“Run! This thing shoots!”

“I can see that!” William shouted back. He got on his feet and jumped away again. Some sort of electric charge hit the square he was standing on moments ago. 

The air smelled sharply of thunder.

The machine quivered. Wilson’s axe hit the space where the shoulder blades would be on a human.

“Move! We’re leaving!”

Escaping the enemy relatively unscathed wasn’t something they got to do often. Most creatures pursued their prey mercilessly, bowing to the main law of this world - and maybe any world: don’t starve.

But the machine knew no hunger.

The hit slowed it down, yet it still turned, stubbornly. Wilson rushed to the side and leaped over the platform. He grabbed William’s hand.

The charge hit the side of the platform with a nauseating crackle. The surface darkened and there was smoke coming off, and a smell of something long since rotten, dried and ancient.

“Run, it’s the bishop, it-”

“Only moves diagonally,” William finished, mindlessly.

That  _ thing _ , someone’s twisted vision of a chess piece, was trying to fry them.

And it was trying to fry the platform, too.

The platform. Their only chance of escaping. The only chance of going back home.

Another hit or two and even Wilson won’t be able to put it back together.

“Well it shoots in straight lines! The axe won’t be enough to kill it. Scatter, try to confuse it and watch your step! Ches, we need a second to get ahead!”

The bright shape rolled on the marble floor like a well-kicked ball and hit the machine.

The bishop shook but was still left standing. It crouched, as if gathering strength, and jumped to the neighboring square.

It did move diagonally. Exceptionally quickly for a chess piece.

The next charge nicked a piece off a pink marble cone. The rusted, creaking machine gave off puffs of scalding hot steam. Then, it landed on the stick holding the radio. 

It snapped.

William ducked and rushed back.

“Leave it, we’ll come back for it if we can!”

“Like hell I will!”

“You’re crazy!”

“No, you’re crazy! We aren’t going home without that thing and the radio!”

“We’re never going home any-”

It was all a blur. One second Chester was gnawing at the mechanic creature, and the other he was flying, sent off by the hit of its foot. The pumpkin hit a column, falling to the ground. A few pieces of charcoal fell out of its maw. 

“You idiot!” Wilson shouted, bringing the axe down on the bishop’s neck, just as it was preparing for the next jump. “Do you want to  _ die  _ here?”

“I want to die in San-Francisco!”

With a deafening rumble of metal and steam, the bishop turned. It hit Wilson.

The monstrous petals opened again, baring the purple flashing from within.

But the bishop didn’t fire. William lifted the broken stick holding the radio and stabbed a hole in the metal cloak, plunging the stick right into the moving mass of gears.

The machine trembled, jerked forward, then fell to the side, slanted. Finally, letting out a cloud of steam, it collapsed to the marble floor and lay there in a pile of metal: rusted, useless, and still.

For a minute William and Wilson just stared at each other, breathing heavily.

Slowly, Wilson stood up, leaning on the platform’s edge.

“Thank you,” he said, looking over to Chester. The pumpkin was still lying next to the column. It moved its legs about, whining and trying to get up.

“The gate leads to a similar world, I’ve told you already,” he added. “And that’s the best case scenario. It might lead to a world that’s worse. There is no escape from here. I’m never going home. And you’re not going home either.”

“Can you fix this thing?”

Wilson’s gaze briefly flicked over to the platform.

“Sure can. It barely got damaged at all. Carter, are you listening? The gate is useless.”

“Christ.” William put the radio on the ground. The wooden handle clicked against the marble. “Jesus, Higgsbury, please. We could just try, right? I’m not asking you to drop everything and search, just give me a chance to try. Give me a chance to build this gate. Give us a chance to escape.“

He had tried to be convincing many times in his life. Usually it didn’t work, neither in casual settings, nor on the stage. It’s a hard trick to execute, even you believe in what you’re saying. Just be confident, stand up straight, all the useless advice.

“Wilson, please,” William stood close, looking him in the eye. Almost fearless, he put a hand on his shoulder. “Believe me. Just this once.”

Wilson shook his head, as if waking up abruptly. He suddenly seemed gaunt, the dark circles under his eyes more noticeable, the shadows on his face suddenly deeper. Darker. 

“Build the gate yourself,” he shook William’s hand off his shoulder. “If you want to. I’m not stupid enough to repeat my own mistakes.”

He turned around and walked towards Chester, showing a slight limp. 

“We’ve reached the savanna on the other side. There is a forest clearing and a meadow not far off. We’ll spend the winter here.”

He didn’t look back.


	8. The Ring Thing

The autumn dragged on. The air seemed clearer, and sometimes the evenings were chilly. Yet, the berry bushes still bore fruit, the rabbits didn’t change color to white - according to Wilson, that was really important. There was no snowfall. The rug stayed brown.

William was convinced that he’d seen a lot in this world and had learned to adopt an impartial approach to facts, but there were two things that he still couldn’t understand for the life of him: uncle Henry’s pocketwatch and the rug.

The rug, more of a long and really brown carpet walk, if he was being honest, was wrapped around the tribal-looking tent they pitched on the clearing. It kept away the wind and kept the warmth surprisingly well. Though according to Wilson, it still wouldn’t be enough for the midwinter frost. William didn’t argue: he still remembered the ‘one-night winter’. 

“Blue?” Wilson asked worriedly, every time William finished his guarding shift, leaving to climb into the warm gut of the tent.

“Brown.”

Without this password, he’d have to forget about the joy of sleeping.

Of course, William thought, fluffing his sleeping bag, of course the carpet couldn’t change color by itself, it’s not tree leaves. Uncle Henry’s pocketwatch couldn’t heal any wounds. The nasty little thing was even worse in this world, it was unnatural, it was dead - but he didn’t want to think about that. It was just a watch, anyway. A regular watch. It couldn’t be dead, alive or healing.

And the carpet was just a regular carpet.

Everything else was Wilson’s delusions. He… well, this world was certainly real, and Wilson was no murderous madman (at least when more or less well fed), but it would be stupid to deny that he was a little crazy. It was not his fault that beside the insane but truthful observations of the insane laws of this world there were some insane insane ones. It was normal. Natural, according to the laws of statistics.

He had to take the pocketwatch anyway. Wilson wore his own around his neck, hiding the red shine under his shirt and vest. William wasn’t going to carry around uncle Henry’s damn pocketwatch. The fact that the chain was just like the ones usually found on jewelry, and not one with a clasp didn’t make it any better. 

So he shoved his watch into the backpack, just to get Wilson off his back. It worked. Wilson did get off his back, but not without predicting a harrowing future and quickly approaching doom. Just like uncle Henry would, really.

In truth, Wilson’s mood swings mellowed quite a bit through the time they spent at the camp. His annoyance didn’t make William search for escape routes anymore. He just seemed like an intelligent man who has lived along for a long time and didn’t feel like explaining his every move to somebody. Maybe they just got used to each other. Maybe it were the garlands. And, of course, the flowers.

William would bet it was the latter.

They set up camp on the clearing that Wilson noticed back on the ridges of the chess hills. It was a sort of a misshapen triangle, one side cutting into the forest, the other touching the meadow and the last and the longest one was along the edge of the vast, almost endless expanse of the savanna. 

That clearing was littered with flowers.

The first morning they spent in this new place - their fourteenth morning, William would correct himself, - they picked and set out to dry enough flowers to make new sleeping bags, were the stems a little longer. There was enough to make three garlands, which looked like childish flower crowns. Wilson, surprisingly nimble, made three of those out of bright white and red flowers. William didn’t know if he should have taken it as a joke. One of them was for him.

Unlike his feelings about uncle Henry’s pocketwatch, William didn’t hold any resentment against a childish flower crown. Now, the faint smell of mint,  mignonette and thyme followed him everywhere, thinning with time.

It was soothing. It made him smile, just a bit - especially together with seeing Chester walk around in his own little garland. 

The aromatic bundles of flower ‘straw’ were held together with sticks, lying next to the drying racks with the pengull and rabbit meat slowly turning into jerky. That sight was soothing, too. William couldn’t tell if it was the flowers’ influence, or just the feeling he got from seeing all of the supplies they’ve gathered - the fruits of their labour. It was touching the part of his soul that was much stronger in Jack.

Maybe that’s what made Jack leave for the American heartland and buy a farm there, and not just their dearest mother, other members of their extended family and their financial standing.

Mother and her quirks didn’t bother Jack. Otherwise he wouldn’t collect the nonsense paraphernalia of the mediums and the paranormal and send it over to her. It seemed he genuinely saw spiritism as just another fashionable hobby, complete with a magazine subscription.

“Jack would like it here,” William thought, watching the endless prairie, the golden waves of tall grass rolling up to the horizon. The vast open space was occupied by the small herds of bison, which Wilson identified as ‘Beefalo’. The burrows in the ground, marked by the molehills above them, housed horned rabbits.

There wasn’t a single monster around.

The spots of spider web started an almost half an hour walk away, on the chess fields. Then more, beyond the strange platform, and some in the forest on the other side. The web covered the ground the thickest around a big boulder, where the forest was the densest. They never found any cocoons. The evenings became shorter, and the dark fell earlier. Still, there was no hissing and no crackling of sharp, spike-covered spider legs in the dark. There was nothing. 

The pig tribesmen were nowhere to be found, either. Wilson said that, strangely enough, they were unlikely to meet any. It was on the twentieth day when they found the altar. 

The altar stood in the forest, right on a patch of dark forest grass. It was a square of rough wooden floor. On it were the pieces of a broken flat rock covered with strange swirling symbols, some strange bundles of feathers and four wooden poles topped with skulls. Tall old pines covered the sky around the heathen ritual.

“Usually these are complete heads,” Wilson noted, inspecting one of the poles. “So…”

“But those are pig skulls, right?”

“Yes, pigman skulls… See this massive lower jaw? -no, over there, on the floorboards. It’s bigger than a human’s, but the teeth are smaller than most monsters have. And the forehead is slanted, making the cranium much smaller. Pig skulls, that’s for sure.”

“This altar… Is this some kind of a burial place?” William asked, crouching next to the broken stone in the middle. Wilson was taking the skulls off the poles, breaking them out of the wooden floor. It would be pointless to rally for respect of local abandoned sacred places. As William well remembered, Wilson had no qualms with digging up the very human graves. He asked out of pure curiosity, without a tinge of reproach. 

William touched one of the stone shards and felt a strangely familiar chill run through his fingers.

“No, I’ve told you before, there’s a cremation ritual. The pigmen burn their dead. This - well, I bumped into a place like this next to a pigman village. I just met Oinkers, but he didn’t really like talking about that. From what he decided to say and from what I understood, this is indeed an altar. The pigmen have a strange belief system, something about stars, thunderstorms and reincarnation. What I know is these altars were meant for pig kings, to prolong their lifespan. There was supposed to be sacrifice of four warriors and some complicated processing of the sacred stone in the middle. Then, the king may meet his demise anywhere on earth, he’ll be reborn after a lightning strike on the altar. Maybe the currents of storms are supposed to bring him back to life, maybe it’s the moonlight, something like that. But you know what, Carter? The king I knew was the most prosperous pig in the both worlds, and if any death was looming over him it would be a death from obesity, so I never saw the altar work. I think it’s just a product of naive faith. They were like children, all of them - ready to believe the craziest things if it fueled their hopes. And of course, that’s a grave for the four unfortunate souls that have their heads stuck on the poles, and- Oh my god, Carter, why?”

William put the last stone shard in place and the altar that time made into a broken puzzle stood in the middle of the forest again. It was mostly whole, except for the web of cracks and a gap on the side. A piece was missing.

William stood up anyway, dusting off his hands a little triumphantly.

“These symbols seem familiar,” he said. “Didn’t the lines and gaps in the platform look like this?”

“Not really,” Wilson winced, looking at the altar. “These are just primitive drawings. You’re winding yourself up again. The gate and the pigmen’s trinkets can’t be connected. The former was Maxwell’s work, and the latter was created by the poor things themselves. To give someone a mind, even the beginnings of one, and to then leave them to rot in a world such as this… it’s a biblical kind of cruelty.”

William felt himself slipping, but his mouth, one of his worst enemies according to uncle Henry, got the better of him again.

“By the way, how does the local pork taste, Higgsbury?”

The dark,twisting shapes of the pines loomed over them. It was going to get dark soon.

“I don’t know,” Wilson answered slowly, taking off his garland. William tensed, inwardly cursing himself, but the scientist was just picking off the blackened petals. “When I killed Oinkers, I tried to burn the remains. I’ve seen their rituals. Once, from a distance, but still… I tried to recreate it as best I could… I think it worked. Everything has been burnt to ashes. I think that counts as a success, it’s not easy to burn a body after all.”

He shrugged and patted his leg, calling over the pumpkin. It jumped around a tree trunk without a care, the flowers in its garland flashing bright like a semaphore with each jump.

“Your mosaic seems to be lacking a piece,” Wilson said, taking the clay pig out of Chester’s gut. He set it into the gap. The statue’s pedestal was smaller than the gap, but the altar looked closer to whole with it that without. At least you couldn’t see the wood underneath anymore.

Then he put the garland back on, in a long, mindless gesture and he turned back to look at his companion. The grimace on his face was hard to decipher. The dried up red poppies with missing petals mixed with the greying white flowers in his messy hair. 

“But if you only knew, Carter,” Wilson struggled to smile, but  _ that _ didn’t look like a smile at all, “if you only knew how tasty it smelled!”

***

Wilson had assembled his ‘alchemy engine’. The steam-powered hunk of metal towered over the tent, and thanks to an intimidating amount of strange mechanical pieces sticking out of the machine’s guts they acquired a whole bunch of useful things. That included supports for the tent, some blue ‘thermal stones’, which William still didn’t understand the use of, a boomerang, a hunting net, a pair of warm vests and two very wintery-looking caps.

The vests were thick and warm, knitted from spider silk and some other ingredients William didn’t know about. It looked presentable. Or, at least, not entirely primitive. The fabric was made of black and white spots, with the latter looking a lot like bone shards. William has heard that back there, in the normal world full of wool, linen and cotton, some eccentrics tried to make all manner of things out of spider silk: gloves, even fabric for a zeppelin. He never could have imagined that spider silk could make for actual fabric instead of something outrageous. Warm, sturdy fabric, no less. 

With all they’ve stockpiled, the thought of surviving winter didn’t seem quite so absurd anymore. The one downside was that when producing his vest, the machine made a calculation error, resulting in the piece of clothing being wide enough to fit two, but lacking a few inches in length. When Wilson saw that, he couldn’t stop laughing for a maddeningly long time. He declined to remake the vest - the error wasn’t critical, as he explained. Most of William’s upper body was covered.

Getting the caps was tougher. They didn’t just need the spider silk, but also actual fur. So they had to go out into the prairie for a nighttime escapade of shaving some bison.

William couldn’t believe what he was doing from the beginning of the operation to the very end. At least his role in it was simple - holding the torch and waiting for Wilson to do the job of shaving the sleeping animals with his own razor. Their expedition went well - the bison snored loudly, completely drowning out any other noises. William didn’t even try to sneak about or whisper on their way back. He just held the torch in an outstretched hand, careful not to set fire to the pile of fur draped over his shoulders. It was hanging down, almost touching the ground, and smelled of manure and grass.

The same herd of eight was grazing not far from their camp the next day. It was easy to recognise. William had only seen bison from a distance, and on illustrations in the books of Cooper and Reid. No artist, not to mention nature itself, would have the heart to create a beast so sad and, more importantly, so bald.

These particular bison settled nearby, and William slowly got used to seeing their wide figures in the distance while hunting or checking bird traps. The bison’s fur grew back day by day, and Wilson said he was hopeful that they’d have the material to insulate their sleeping bags, and maybe even the walls of a future winter home.

William, on the other hand, hoped that his companion understood the basics of construction, because he wouldn’t be able to dig a log into the ground if he tried.

What did he know well, William thought one of those days. Killing monsters - maybe he wasn’t as good as Wilson, but still. Chopping wood. Picking berries off bushes. Consuming everything even remotely edible. Those were all skills he learned in this world.

Well, he also knew how to run. And do magic tricks.

Standing guard in the night, William inspected his own fingers sceptically. They were covered in a whole net of scabs and scars, and felt less deft than before. Even taking into account the effect of struggling to survive. A magician needs practice every day, otherwise he’ll lose his dexterity. When was the last time he fished out a hidden silk on a string from his pocket? The last time he grabbed a rabbit by the ears without the intention of eating it? Before all of this, he had a couple of flat pebbles to train with. He picked them up on Mud Creek shore. He used to grip the pebbles between his index and ring finger, wait a second, catching the trajectory, and send them slipping - flying - between his palm and fingers, the two grey shadows not slowing for a moment.

William remembered putting them in his new suit’s pocket when he bought the train ticket. Of course, they were gone now.

Who would carry stones around for twenty years, even if it’s for practicing…

Finding suitable pebbles now would be tough… The only stone he had was a sizable purple gem that looked like an amethyst. It was stuck in the mechanical bishop’s head. William left in next to the platform, along with the heavy music box. “If you want to carry this around, you’ll be doing it yourself”, Wilson warned him. The gemstone was round and big, almost the size of his hand. There were no lights dancing along its facets, unlike the sapphire. It seemed as if the amethyst was filled with a clammy mist, darker than the smoke from their campfire. Touching it was almost as unsettling as touching the pocketwatch.

On the eighteenth day they were exploring the land around the chess fields and passed by the platform. After much arguing and pleading, Wilson caved and helped him install the box into the gap in the middle of the platform. It slid into place with a dull click - a perfect fit. Afterwards Wilson met any questions with a skeptical snort.

So William looked for the pieces of the gate alone, grateful to at least have the opportunity.

Maybe it was for the better. When on day twenty one the radio on its much shorter handle started the howling again, William was sure that Wilson wouldn’t have let him near the next piece. If he was there. 

The piece looked like a ribbon made of steel cards, each a couple of inches thick. It was connected on the ends, making some kind of a ring. Or a belt.

It was lying on the grass in the middle of the forest, surrounded by a whole bunch of brown flowers.

William took out the sabre just in case. He walked into the circle carefully. It reminded him of the trampled grass or mushrooms growing in circles - circles that the village people have always called fairy rings.

It’s a strange thing, he thought, picking up the card belt. Wilson was a man of science, yet some of his beliefs were very close to superstitions.

William wore the belt, taking it over his shoulder like a length of rope. He took a step back, trying to avoid a big rust-colored flower. Its petals curved outwards, looking like a coat of paint was stripping off from the moisture and time.

William bumped into it, crushing the petals under his shoe.

The flower blew up in a cloud of ashy dust. A dark shadow-like thing left in its place gripped William’s foot.

Then, the other flowers exploded, too.

_ “How are you doing this?” _

_ “Come on, Maxie, look. You’ve missed everything.” _

_ The young woman sitting opposite him took the chess piece off the table with her slender fingers and put it back on the boards. She counted back the moves. _

_ Her hair was gathered in a casual, messy bun. There was a rose blossom tucked behind her ear.  _

_ She was hunched over the old chess board. One of her stocking-clad legs was tucked underneath her. The other was swinging back and forth under the table. Somehow, William knew that she had a lacquered shoe hanging off of it.  _

_ She loved sitting that way. _

_ “But wait, didn’t I take your rook with this move?” _

_ “Maxie,” she sighed, “this is Skeets’ gambit. Of course you took my rook. That gave me the access to your king.” _

_ “How do you manage to remember all this stuff.” William shook his head at the board, impressed. There was less than a dozen of his pieces left.  _

_ “Not much of a problem,” she shrugged, huffing sarcastically. She leaned onto the table with her elbows. The outline of her shoulder blades sharpened beneath the thin dress. “If your dad gave you a thrashing for getting these things confused, you’d remember too. See, there’s a lot of these ready-made solutions. You just use them according to the circumstances, and that’s it.” _

_ Her expression suddenly dulled. _

_ “And that’s it. Chess are a boring thing, Maxie. Everything goes according to the rules, on an eight by eight field.” _

_ “Then let’s add some magic,” he said, trying to keep his voice deadly serious. Judging by the way she barely held in her laughter, snickering into her hand, he didn’t have much luck. “Our playing field will be… Table by table.” _

_ His gestures were ones of a professional magician showing off his props. He traced one side of the table with his finger, then the other. _

_ “Now, I’ll need a volunteer.” _

_ “Me!” she threw her hand up. _

_ “Wonderful, miss… choose a piece… what will this one do?” _

_ “It will kick,” she said, making a jump over half the table with the knight, knocking other two pawns. One was standing on the board, on the bending point of the imaginary “L”, and another was laying at the end. “Neigh!” _

_ “Wonderful, just perfect! But you should be careful, or the steam-powered rook will run it over.” _

_ “Then it will hide!” _

_ “The rook can break walls!” William dragged the piece along the table, huffing like the thing actually breathed steam, and knocked over the box of pencil the knight hid behind. “It’s not called a siege weapon for nothing. Get your bishop to safety, miss!” _

_ “It’s not afraid of straight lines,” the woman took the long forgotten bishop standing right under attack from the rook. “Exure haereticus! Whoosh! Cleansing fire!” _

_ The rook fell off the table, knocked over by William. They laughed together. _


	9. The Monster and the Crank

When William woke up, everything was dark. His first reaction was a feeling of visceral terror.

He got knocked out and didn’t wake up before dark.

It was too late.

The monster from the dark attacks almost instantly, so there would be a strike any second second now. A strike that could dent flesh even when marginal.

He had to make a fire.

He couldn’t just give up.

He had to make a fire, no matter what from, from anything, he couldn’t just-

William jerked forward, blindly reaching around, and heard something snapping, coming apart. A moment of blinding, blood-curdling fear later he tore a layer of spider web off his face. It was lit by the orange light of the setting sun. The sun that was touching the horizon, still looming over the columns and the chess fields. It would be a few hours before the darkness fell. 

William sat around for a bit, waiting for his heart to start beating again, and then stood up slowly, tearing the white cords stuck to clothes.

There weren’t any flowers around, they were all gone. The dark shadows were gone, too. Just the card ring-belt thing, lying on the grass. And a lot of spider web. The spots of white littered the grass and the tree trunks, covering every surface around him. 

Wilson said that the spiders sleep at daytime. Even if the world was broken, like he also said, the spiders that left all this rubbish around would still devour the easy prey that William was, lying on the grass, powerless. 

All that web had to come from somewhere, right? It wasn’t there before. That’s for sure.

He looked around. Farther away, behind the trees, he saw white - it seemed that the spiders not only covered up the grass and the trees, but the boulder, too. Next to it, covered from view by the pines, there were spider cocoons. They looked empty. The monsters themselves were nowhere to be seen. 

William got up, rubbing his numb hands and tearing the white strands off his sleeves and lapels. The suit must have been ruined completely. It was a wonder it held up for such a long time.

There wasn’t a single strand of silk, neither on the sabre, nor on the radio. The radio hummed again when William touched it, softly and quietly. It must have been confused by the proximity of the belt. 

William shook the radio. It was quiet.

He stuck the silent device back through his backpack and picked up the sabre. He traced the transparent razor-sharp edge with his palm. It haven’t dulled, even after all this time. Maybe it just couldn’t. 

Returning to the camp empty-handed after a day spent wandering around seemed like the wrong decision.

***

“I thought you’ve been eaten already,” Wilson said instead of a greeting, lifting up something that looked like a ladle, “but you’re back with loot.”

As far as William could see from behind the massive bundle of spider silk he was carrying, Wilson was hunched over a big cauldron that stood slanted on its stone supports. Something was bubbling inside.

On the clearing, three campfires burned bright, chasing away the coming dark. The cone-like shape of the tent stood to the side, completely different from the grey cones of the pines. He felt the faint soothing aroma of the flowers, almost invisible in the tall grass. The bison huffed in the distant prairie. William felt strange. It was as if what he came back to wasn’t just a camp built a week ago - two, counting normal time - in the company of a temporarily stable madman. It was as if he came home.

“Thank you for believing in me,” he piled the spider silk on the grass, grateful to have left the ring back on the platform. “Where did you find a cauldron?”

“Made it today,” Wilson shrugged and slurped something from the ladle, “with the engine. It’s not a cauldron, it’s a crock pot. Or at least it was supposed to be a crock pot, but the walls are a bit too thin, I think. It has a devilish appetite for coal, and useless for the nomadic lifestyle. For a winter camp, on the other hand… and the food in it stays warm, - he took another sip - and liquid. Sometimes. Want a taste?”

He scooped up some more food and let it fall back into the cauldron. William could never have imagined that liquid could make such a viscous sound.

“May I ask what that is?”

“Theoretically, it’s meat stew. Just enough for one evening, I was mostly checking out the crock pot. It seems to hold the heat fine, but the walls bother me, to be honest.”

William walked by and carefully took the ladle from him. The smell of the stew was tangible. Back in the normal world, it would make him think twice about coming close to it. Now, it meant one thing - food.

Food can’t be bad, even if it was cooked by a mad scientist from god knows what meat in god knows what crockery made of well, also god knows what.

“Careful, there could be bones, and wood chips, and-”

“Is this rabbit meat?” William asked after he stopped coughing.

“Well, what can I say. Partially.”

“Don’t you dare tell me what’s in it, except rabbit, before I finish.”

“Well, you- hey, only a half of it is for you! And give me back the ladle. I made some dishes, too. You’re like some caveman, I swear.”

“As if it was _ me _ who wanted to eat _ you, _” William wanted to say, but the hot stew burned his tongue, giving him a few moments to think. He decided to stay silent and eat. The wooden bowl was likely the weirdest-shaped thing he’s ever seen. A bone was sticking out of the stew. It was a jawbone - a rabbit jawbone, he thought. There were rabbit teeth sticking out of it, at least. 

“Why didn’t you bring back any meat?”

“I didn’t see any spiders,” William said, poking at the bone. “Just the empty cocoons again. A dozen of them. I’ve cut up most of them, but couldn’t carry the rest. We can come back later, there’s plenty of silk left.”

“Where did you find them?”

“To the east, there. In the forest next to the chess field.”

“Wait a second, we’ve been there. It’s hard not to notice such a big group. There were some spots in the area, but a dozen of spider dens?”

“It was strange,” William tried to pick the right words very carefully, “but I... um... it seems to me that they appeared suddenly.”

“What do you mean?”

‘I’ve spent the whole day searching for another gate piece, found it, stumbled on a flower, got knocked out, played insane chess with a very beautiful and very smart woman and woke up covered in spider web. Surrounded by cocoons.’ 

“What I said. Listen,” he sighed. “Basically, I found another piece. It’s like… a strange ring made of metal plates. It was surrounded with brown flowers.”

“Right,” Wilson said darkly.

“I lost consciousness right next to it. I can’t really tell what happened, but- I heard that hallucination again. The one with the woman. This time I saw her, too.”

“That’s bad news.” Wilson put the empty bowl aside. “These things seems to affect you more than I thought. You never should’ve started all this trouble with the gate, Carter.”

“Well, a couple of hours passed, and the spiders somehow managed to cover up the whole place: the ground, lower part of the trees, a big boulder. I got lucky - maybe they thought I was dead, or something. Well, I think that’s what happened.”

“Sure. A dead piece of meat isn’t a piece of meat after all.”

Wilson stretched sideways fluidly, like a wild beast clawing at the grass. No, not the grass, William realised. A cold shiver ran down his spine. Wilson was clutching a spearhead, holding it like a knife.

The firelight bounced off the sharp, uneven edge.

“Their behaviour may be weird, but the basics - like the survival instincts, - had worked in everything here so far. What are staring at me for? Fetch me the handle, it’s right behind you. That spear broke twice already, so I’m trying a beefalo fur rope this time, maybe it will work better.”

“The handle,” William mumbled, stumbling in the middle of the word. His fingers have finally decided to obey and continued the now useless path towards the sword hilt.

“Are you sure you weren’t dropped on your head as a child? You’re so weird sometimes.”

William gave him the stick. It’s been stuck in the ground right behind his back.

“We should be more careful at night.” Wilson was tying the spearhead to the handle. He looked up at William briefly. “Try to watch your hallucinations in your free time, deal?”

“Deal.”

“We can make you a new vest, if you want. Or lengthen the old one. We’ve got plenty of material now.”

“Shouldn’t we conserve resources?”

“What for?” Wilson shrugged. “The inedible raw material should be used up as fast as possible. It will be gone at the end of the winter anyway - no point in having a big stash of things. Sadly, the laws that let humanity survive and develop to its current level are broken here. Maxwell’s world only accepts a nomadic lifestyle, perpetual movement. Settling down for the winter is possible, but making a permanent home really isn’t.”

“Why is that?”

“It’s mostly the cyclops deer.”

“The _ what _ deer?”

“The one-eyed deer. It… doesn’t like supplies.”

“And I’m the one who’s been dropped head down as a child?”

“Look, Carter, imagine a giant monster as tall as a five-storey building, it has only one eye, looks like a demon with hooves and shakes the ground with every step it takes. That thing? It’s the cyclops deer. It comes at the end of the winter, and it’s the only creature except the mechanical chess pieces that has no interest in food. Trampling a village or a camp into dust, on the other hand - that’s something it likes. I was wondering why the pigmen have such flimsy houses. You should’ve seen them, a slight breeze could take them apart. I thought the pigmen were too primitive to build something else. I was wrong. It’s the deer. At the end of winter it walks all over the island methodically and destroys anything that Maxwell didn’t create. If it finds the camp, and it will, you can be sure it won’t move on until the whole place is razed to the ground. Taking more than we can carry, especially if it’s raw material, is just stupid. The silk you’ve gathered will be useful… But we’ve got a surplus right now. We’ll make more hunting nets and clothes. This way we won’t have to run the engine an extra time, and supplies wi- Carter,” he sighed, looking at William. “I’m telling you the truth. You’ll see for yourself. It’s pointless trying to operate in time frames bigger than a season.” 

“And you never tried to kill that deer?”

“Oh, I have. Me and half a pigman village. Maybe you’ve made some of your creations immortal. It’s a bit of a pity you don’t remember it. It’s an impressive creature, if nothing else.”

“I’m not Maxwell,” William said grimly.

“I know.”

Wilson stood up, using the new spear for support. A length of dark rope was densely coiled around the end, each coil tied with a knot, tightly holding the spearhead and the handle together. It was a spear like the thousands and thousands of spears that hunters made at the dawn of civilisation. But the one who made it first was a scientist.

  
  
  


“I know, you’re just a magician. Hand over the spider silk. I’m standing guard first. There’s something for me to do.”

***

“Brown. I’m grateful for the new vest, and I’ve set up enough bird traps already, but that, Higgsbury, what is that thing?”

“There was some spider silk left, just not enough for another snare. That’s it. Hm… Maybe the rug is broken, like everything else. That’s weird… still brown… If this happens the same way as the hound thing, the winter will be as cold as on the South Pole.”

“What - is - that?”

“Oh my god, Carter. It’s a top hat. Stop fondling it, it’s still sticky. Spider web needs fifteen hours to dry after processing.”

“You’ve made a top hat?”

“I’m not calling it perfection among hats, but it really doesn’t deserve three questions in a row. I think it looks a lot like those hats magicians have.”

“You taught me to skin rabbits using bird bones, and now you’ve made something we can't use at all?”

“Fine, Carter. Forget it. It’s just a funny-looking supply of fabric. We’ll take it apart to patch something up if we need to. If anything happens, yell louder, me and Chester are going to the prairie. We’ll check the traps.”

The top hat… That thing Wilson called a top hat was indeed a little sticky. It also painted his hands black. It seems the engine used soot as a black dye. William set the thing back in its place, on a frame made of sticks. He suspected that the inner frame of this thing was made from the same kind of sticks. The hat crinkled a bit in his hands, but still held its shape perfectly. 

It did look a little like a magician’s prop, but only on the outside. A prop top hat could be worn like an ordinary hat, if one was willing to change the ribbon for something less flashy, but it was not ordinary at all.

There were several ways to prepare a trick with taking things out of a top hat. William chose the easiest and the cheapest. He’d stitched a piece of cardboard covered with fabric inside his own top hat back in the day. It worked as a false bottom. There was just enough room behind it for a dozen of silks and a small rabbit. William’s last rabbits were real professionals. These animals already didn’t mind sitting in dark places, but the old long-eared couple William bought somewhere at the edge of Baltimore reacted to their lot with the indifference of Socrates. Sometimes, when he held one of them by the ears in front of an audience, he’d have to poke it with his pinkie, and even then there’d be somebody in the crowd who’d say it was taxidermied.

In other words, there was no real magic there, except for the atmosphere. It was all, props, charisma, well-researched moves and endless training.

The top hat Wilson made was quite ordinary. It has a thin garland in place of a ribbon, it was black, it was flashy - exactly the thing people imagine when talking about magic tricks, at least those who don’t really know much about them. Those who have never seen the inside of the top hat. Those who have no idea that tricks are a science too.

“Carter! Are you asleep yet? Come with me, I’ve found something.”

William was sleepy after standing guard, and not feeling well in general. Still, he didn’t argue and followed his companion drearily, wiping his hands on the grass on the way out.

He forgot about sleeping once he saw what Wilson had found.

“Oh my god… It’s- It’s one of those, isn’t it?”

“Yes, the fur is short, it didn’t have time to grow out. It’s from that herd. Calm down, boy, don’t growl… There’s no danger now.”

William crouched next to Wilson, who had a piece of meat stained in something green on the end of his spear.

The surface of the meat seemed to be melting slowly. There was a faint acidic smell.

Chester the pumpkin kept close to his leg and grumbled.

“Smooth cuts, like from a razor. This stuff is eating into the meat more and more. It didn’t bubble five minutes ago.”

“Maybe it’s the sunlight?”

“Working as a catalyst? It may well be. Have you heard anything at night?”

“Not a sound more than usual. You?”

“Likewise.”

“We’re not going to eat this, right?” William tried to make a joke. He hoped his voice wasn’t trembling.

It was one of the bison they’ve shaved. The herd grazed not far from the camp in the last few days. Something killed it. Judging by the wounds, something like a salad shooter with a steady supply of sulphuric acid.

Something silent enough to kill a sizable bull and gather no attention.

Something that could still be around.

They lived here for a week, enjoying the absolute safety of the place. Even standing guard was more for the benefit of keeping the campfire lit.

And all this time...

“We shouldn’t risk it. We’ve got plenty of supplies now. See, a piece right there is missing. It seems like it was, um, bitten, but managed to get away and walk for a while. The grass over there is all bloody, and the trail goes on. Maybe that’s why there was no noise. It was attacked far from here, and walked by itself.”

“But you said the herd protects every bison, and they guard each other to the death!”

“Beefalo. Yes. Well, I haven’t seen any other bodies in the area, so either they changed their strategy completely, which is not likely. Just a few days ago they huffed at me the second I got close… The other option… Well, you’ve heard about natural selection, right?”

“The strong eat the weak and both species become stronger as the result?”

“Yes, but I meant a different aspect of it. The group, not the species. In the human group we’d call it sacrifice - if some higher power marked somebody as its prey, the entire group would be wiser not to go against it, or everyone dies. Herd animals don’t think that way, it’s instinctual. They just know when guarding one is less beneficial for the herd as a whole. Me and you aren’t such a power, and the beefalo can feel it, but this… I think that’s a similar thing.”

“So,” William gulped, “what kind of power could it be? Have you seen it before?”

“Maybe the ‘normal’ world variation didn’t have it at all. Maybe I’ve just been lucky so far.” 

Wilson turned and looked him in the eye. He was gravely serious.

“Go and sleep now. I’ll wake you at noon. We’ll follow the trail and see what we’ve got.”

“But if-”

“Fear always comes from ignorance,” Wilson said quietly. “It attacks at night, and I’ve got no idea if the fire can scare it away. We mustn’t wait. If it’s another cyclops deer, it’s better to know in advance. If it’s not… We’ll see what parts of that creature are the most edible.”

***

William wore the transparent chainmail and took the axe instead of the sabre. Wielding the spear was even harder, and Wilson told him to leave the sword at the camp. William weighed the unfamiliar weapon in his hands. He’d learned to cut trees with it after all, and he needed a way to defend himself. The chainmail proved useful in the battle with the “ghost”. He hoped that it would be as effective against acid and knives. It was a last resort, of course. William had no intention of coming close to the creature, whatever it was. He hoped that Wilson would be fine by himself. After all, Wilson is a much better fighter, he thought, walking alongside his companion as they followed the bloody trail to the forest. He has his spear and this weird ‘armor’ made of wooden planks.

A week of peace and prosperity made him forget that this world was made of nothing but extreme cases and last resorts.

The axe handle was broken in half by the monster’s terrible mandibles. Then, the pieces of flint and wood disappeared in its maw, swallowed whole, like sweets.

Wilson shouted something about spiders and William thought that if this was a spider, then it was a special one. A spider queen, a spider ancestor, the mother of all that scrambles on eight legs in the darkness of all worlds, of all that hang web in the corners, - it didn’t matter if some puny two-legged ones made clothes out of it.

It was still a hunter’s net.

And those who hunted with it had more mastery than those who carried spears.

  
  


The spider was the size of three bison. Its body was round, covered in silk. Its legs were sharp, spikes jutting out on the sides. If it tucked them under the body, if it hid its head, covering it with a cocoon, if there wasn’t a howl and screech from being awoken from its slumber, the creature did look like a boulder covered in spider web. 

A very, very big boulder.

“Why didn’t it eat me,” William thought weakly. His limbs were numb, his pulse hammered in his ears. The creature held him in an iron grip and carried him up to its jaws. ”I confused it with a boulder, I laid next to it for hours, I made noise and cut the web. Why didn’t it eat me?” 

The pulsing in his ears was overwhelming.

Mandibles snapped right next to his face. There was a strange smell coming from the creature. William would expect anything but now he was sure it was the smell of rotten flowers.

_ “You do remember I don’t know how to do that, right?” _

_ “Oh, come on, you’re doing fine.” _

The grip weakened. The spider let out a series of clicks and snapping, its eight-eyed head jerked back, turning together with its body. Then the monster crashed down. The air smelled of burnt fur and web, and something growled down there, like an animal.

_ “In a room, yes, but in a crowd? I’ll knock over everyone who has the misfortune of being near me and trample the feet of everyone else.” _

_ “That’s the spirit!” _

William moved, trying to weaken the vice holding him. It was slick with green ooze. His fingers felt prickly, then numbed. He gathered his strength and grabbed a bony node, covered with spikes. He pulled.

_ The crowd around them was dressed flashily. People rejoiced. William looked at his companion and smiled, too. She was wearing a sparkling dress and there was a rose in her hair. Each heartbeat made the red strings coming to her from the edges of his vision pulse brighter. _

The node didn’t budge. He got shaken as the spider got distracted by a different opponent. William felt a weak pulse of pain in his side. He pressed harder. There was smoke coming from underneath his fingers, thin, black smoke. It was as cold and slippery as the spider’s legs.

_ The people on the stage in the corner took out a set of unbearably shiny musical instruments. _

“Let him go!”

_ “Well, I just had to warn you.” _

There was a noise, as if a whole tree snapped and fell. The spider snapped its mandibles and hurried to the left, one of its legs limping. William pulled at the node again, more from inertia than a real struggle. Then he realised it wasn’t just the grip holding him in place.

The chitin ‘blades’ pierced the chainmail and got stuck inside him.

_ “It’s not the time to be modest. Come on, Maxie, follow the rhythm!” _

_ The whole crowd was dancing, making some absurd moves. William and his companion were dancing, too. A small part of him, buried deep, knew that they were all dancing in silence, following a strange, broken rhythm, and the people on the stage were hitting the keys, pinching the strings and blowing the trumpets without making a sound. _

“William!”

The pressure became unbearable, the smells mixed into dense, blinding smoke. The sounds reached a point where the last notes are lost in the white noise of radio silence. William tried to breathe in, but could not.

_ Then, the ragtime rang out. _

***

His lungs expanded from another’s breath again, something pushed down on his ribs, and William started coughing, spitting out the remnants of the smoke. 

His whole body hurt, and he couldn’t feel his legs, but his head was the worst. It had to be skull fracture. There was no other explanation he could accept for such pain.

The air felt painfully clear, like it always feels in an untouched pine forest. If there was a smell of blood, salve and something acidic tainting it, it was faint.

He moved. It was a bad idea.

“Breathe, come on… God damn it, Carter, breathe!”

William turned his head very carefully. His vision was still blurry, but he recognised Wilson easily.

His companion sat close to him on the wooden floor. His clothes were all torn, and the armor planks were gone. His face was covered in the mixture of blood and water.

“What happened to the…” William said, struggling to move his tongue, “the…”

  
  


“The spider is dead, I- I brought a few trees down on it and set them on fire. My god… I thought you wouldn’t make it. Your heart stopped.”

William coughed. He felt like there was still smoke around his neck, and there was a flash of red on his chest.

The pines twisted upwards into the sky around them.

“What’s that?” He tried to catch the red flash. After four tries, he succeeded. He could barely bend his fingers. “Uncle Henry’s watch? Where- Why- I left it my bag.”

“Of course you did. This one’s mine,” Wilson sniffled and wiped his face with the edge of his sleeve. That did nothing to make it cleaner. “You absolute idiot, I said to carry them with you!”

His fingers slipped along the fake gold of the edge, finding the hidden button. The cap opened with a click.

A handful of ashes fell out onto William’s chest. There was nothing left of the inside of the watch, except the hand. It was hanging loose. The soil inside and even the dial were gone.

“Magic, right?” he mumbled. “And I missed the lightning strike?”

He was laying on the altar he cobbled together. It was as whole as it was before. If you could call a stone mosaic whole.

“There was no lightning. It was me who brought you here. I… remember it was nearby.”

“Why?”

Wilson was silent. William enjoyed the fact he could breathe. Who would have thought breathing in and out was such a great thing.

He let the remains of the pocketwatch fall and tried to sit up. His head was more or less in one piece, and his legs were still with him. That was good.

“Lie down. At least let the salve heal the shallower wounds. That thing stabbed you through more than once.”

Wilson took out another portion of salve and with it - a long, curved piece of metal.

“This was in our greedy spider’s gut. The acid did almost no damage. I thought you’d like to see it. That you’d be there to see it.”

  
  


“What-”

“It’s a crank. A piece. Of the gate.”

“So that’s why… I thought the radio was malfunctioning.”

“It seems the pieces of Maxwell’s door are the most durable. Lie down, Carter, you were almost dead five minutes ago.”

The altar was whole, William thought again. The only thing missing was the pig statue. There were only broken pieces left. Wilson must have shattered it when dragging him onto the stone.

“Why?” William asked again. He did lie down without arguing. “You said you don’t believe in this stuff. And… Why, Higgsbury? You…”

‘You believe I’m the creator of the gate. Of this world. You’re a madman. You’re crazy. You wanted to kill me, time and time again.’  
  


“Well,” Wilson shrugged and tried to smile, “there are four pieces in total. One piece left. It would be hard to find alone.”


	10. Rabbits and Others

The short evenings of the subtropics changed into the drawn-out twilight hours of the north. They started close to noon, when the big reddened sun started to lean towards the horizon. The air felt a few degrees cooler. At night, away from the fire, breath hung in the air in white puffs of steam.

Yet there still was no snow, and the rabbits were yet to change color, and...

“Brown. Damn, that rug is a useless piece of junk!”

“This rug is basically our tent, so I wouldn’t agree with that sentiment.”

“Tipi, Carter. It’s called a tipi. We’ll move to a warmer place anyway. And stop jumping around. If your wounds open up again you’ll be stitching them up by yourself.”

William didn’t find that idea all that hopeless. Sure, stitching himself up was a nightmare, and the wounds on his back would be a problem. He also wasn’t any better with a needle than his companion. But at least he didn’t have a habit of biting the loose string off with his teeth after finishing the job. Unlike Wilson. 

The very thought of Wilson’s teeth next to his skin made William shudder.

“Are you sure your vest was from actual silk? Maybe we shouldn’t have added the spider web? I don’t think these, uh, make for good sutures.”

“Look, Carter, the salve can’t make a missing part of your body grow back. It’s wiser to stitch together what you’ve got left and put it on top. By the way, let me see the bandage… stop squirming, sheesh. Hm. It seems to be fine.”

The damage done by the giant spider healed slower than any other he’s sustained in this world. Maybe there was poison beyond that of the monster’s saliva, and it was slow to heal. Even the practically endless amount of salve Wilson made out of said monster couldn’t drive it away fast enough. The sharp smell of salve was everywhere, it melted into skin and cloth alike. William felt nauseous, his head would spin after a few steps or just standing up too fast. Even three days later there was weakness deep in his bones. He couldn’t hunt or chop firewood, so he slept. For what felt like ages he balanced on the edge between dream and reality, sinking deeper and deeper. In the painful abyss of half-sleep he saw visions: a field of red flowers stretching out to the horizon, and a massive monstrous shadow behind his back standing in clouds of smoke full of sharp claws, and eyes, and gnashing teeth in the darkness.

He didn’t tell Wilson about those dreams. “Maybe it would be better to do so,” he thought, winding the rabbit fur blanket tighter around himself. The blanket was stitched together with a rougher version of the string that made up the sutures. Wilson lived in this world for longer, after all, he knew its quirks better. But then there was no point in poking a sleeping dragon. Wilson dismissed everything about the visions as delirium at the best of times. At the worst… he’d call William ‘Maxwell’ again. 

Wilson was building the ‘winter shelter’ deep into the ground. It was starting to take a questionable shape, but William was not permitted anywhere near manual labor. So he mostly just worked on skinning the rabbits and processing the pelts. A small amount of the meat was eaten the same day, but most of it ended up on the drying racks or getting smoked over the campfire. William watched it carefully, especially worried about the charcoal. It often acted up.

He had nothing else to worry about, except the odd small thing here and there. He noticed that doing anything was slower and harder now, and he got tired very quickly. Still, the boredom was taking its toll on him. William realised that until this moment, his life in this world was an endless race.

Now that everything slowed down, WIlliam was going stir crazy. “That must be the breaking point,” he thought, “that made humanity what it is, the boredom that appears when you’ve got food, safety and shelter. It gives you time for doing…pretty much anything else.”

The trouble was in finding what to do. On the second day he picked up the radio and got up to roam the area again. He didn’t make it far. After a short walk he was spent, heaving like a man who’d finished running several marathons in a row. Then he bumped into Wilson on his way back and got quite an earful for even attempting the whole thing. So William did what he could: he slept, he got out to cut some grass or branches and he enjoyed long, convoluted dialogues with his companion. Those felt more like monologues, since Wilson wasn’t quite used to the fact that there was someone to answer his remarks. William rolled two marble pieces between his fingers - they were a poor replacement for the pebbles he trained with before. And he dealt with the rabbits.

Their winter supplies grew day by day.

Ever since setting up camp, their diet mostly consisted of rabbit meat, sometimes with some carrots or berries, much to William’s approval. After they got the cauldron, there was stew made from the same ingredients. It didn’t get much better. William had to eat it every day after his injury, and he couldn’t deny that fact. Even then, most of what they ate was rabbit meat.

Rabbit roast, rabbit fillet, rabbit kebab, rabbit with herbs, rabbit with carrots, chopped rabbit, baked rabbit, rabbit, rabbit, rabbit. Every day, they had three - sometimes even four! - plentiful meals. Sometimes eating too much just because they could. William couldn’t think about his childhood pickiness without smiling. What’s the difference? Rabbits were delicious. Rabbits were perfect. 

Now that the pelts were as useful as the meat, and with a dozen of traps scattered around the camp, the rabbits came to the camp alive. When Wilson took them out of the traps frozen in shock and fear, and threw them into the belly of a backpack or into Chester’s maw. “These animals are very calm,” William thought as he rinsed his hands in a bowl before picking up another warm, quivering thing. “Just put them in a dark place and they’ll wait slavishly to be pulled out by the ears into the blinding light, and be shown to the thundering crowd.”

“You really are a professional.” Wilson said, pouring berries into a box-like structure he made out of planks. William flinched, his fingers clawing at the rabbit’s fur.

“Of course. That’s basically the only thing I do now.”

“That’s now what I meant,” Wilson snickered. “You really are a magician. You pull them out of the backpack as if it’s a top hat.”

“Thank you, but I fear I lost all skill. Training and reaction speed are half the battle for a magician. I, on the other hand, am better at chopping firewood and killing spiders the size of a dog.”

By the middle of the sentence William thought that maybe it was the wrong thing to say. He didn’t want Wilson remembering Maxwell, who allegedly created said spiders. His fear was unfounded. His companion laughed.

“Don’t be so modest. Not all skills disappear by themselves. Take me, for example. I could repeat a preparation cycle for at least five experiments. Without the equipment I’d look more like a mime, of course, but i wouldn’t be an inch off.”

Suddenly, William felt uneasy. He didn’t know where it came from - that feeling of deep-seated anger. Something hidden deep within and cold like fish scales. It scared him, and he said something out loud to make the feeling go away. Just to say something.

“Maybe you’re right. It’s a pity we can’t have a show around here.”

“Why not?” Wilson was perched on a log that served as both part of their firewood supply and a bench. He scratched the pumpkin behind the ear. His fingers were stained in berry juice, leaving bloodstains on the orange fur. “Hey, Chester, do you want to see some magic tricks?”

The pumpkin barked.

“I wouldn’t mind it either.”

William’s movement slowed. He already had his hand on the rabbit’s neck, feeling the hard edges of the cranium and the mandible.

“Magic tricks? Which ones?”

“I don’t know, which did you tour with? Playing cards or rabbits, for example.”

“Magic tricks,” William mumbled. His palm felt the animal’s weak quivering. “I got the impression you’re not a fan of those.”

“Did you say something to the rabbit, Carter? I don’t think it heard you.”

“I thought you didn’t like these things, Higgsbury.”

“You thought,” Wilson stopped abruptly and winced, his face a strange grimace of something like pain. “I don’t have anything against entertainment. If I remember correctly, you assured me that magic tricks weren’t actually sorcery… the part of science most people are unaware of. And I… I believe you. You weren’t lying. All this time, you weren’t lying.”

After that, he was silent. William stared at him, not letting go of the rabbit.

“And you know,” Wilson stuttered a bit and smiled, “winter’s a bit boring around here. Especially when it gets dark. Don’t you think?”

“Yes,” William said. He let go, pet the rabbit mindlessly and gripped its fur again, carefully. He didn’t know if it calmed down or not. He only felt that it stopped quivering. “I do.”

***

He had no cheap smoke bombs he took apart for the capsules with smoke, and obviously he had no playing cards. The strips of metal the strange ring was made of obviously didn’t count. He left it next to the platform, anyway.

But he did have a top hat, even if it wasn’t in a proper condition.

And he had rabbits.

By god, he had rabbits.

William began preparation in earnest, just like he would for an actual show. He demanded time alone with the alchemy engine, using up a few more flaps of spider web. (‘For the props’ was the vague explanation he gave). He’d trained at night, cleaned up and modified what remained of his suit and, of course, he’d had a field day with the top hat, trying to make it a half usable prop. 

There was no stage, but there wasn’t a crowd to account for anyway. The patch of grass next to the campfire, with the few flowers almost invisible in the coming dark, was more than enough for William.

His audience seemed to agree.

William knew that any master illusionist would kick the desire to perform tricks out of him for a show like that. He played the clown more than he actually performed tricks. He had to remember all the puns and jokes used to entertain the public in case of setbacks, which were inevitable even in good shows. Of course, he still had no assistant in a shiny dress, and his clothes were a torn-up mess. Instead, he had a rope of silks painted bright colors (he used flowers as dye, so the soothing smell could be felt from a mile away), a top hat, a rabbit and the marble pebbles that changed places and disappeared, only to emerge from Wilson’s sleeve or Chester’s maw (In the end Wilson was elbow-deep in there, saying the pebbles couldn’t possibly get in), William also had the stage persona and the charm inherent to most performers. If uncle Henry was to be believed, that charm was the thing that would bring William places even worse than a prison. 

“What could be worse,” he thought, laughing aloud. He was stuck in a crazy world filled with death and hunger, one on one with a madman.

Wilson laughed, too. Even the pumpkin, which was the most shocked by the pebble appearing in its gut, barked happily and ran circles around his feet, only stopping to hop up. They laughed, because they were happy. William suddenly thought that maybe it was not all bad. Everything could certainly be twice as terrible. From a certain point of view his current predicament was - well, maybe not better than him loitering along the East Coast, but, if you thought about it, not actually worse. Maybe his companion wasn’t actually crazy. Maybe a bit bent, but lately his behaviour was completely normal. That moment, with a bright silk around his neck, same as the one on the pumpkin, and a fresh garland on his head he looked normal. Better than many members of William’s usual audience were.

Wilson started chuckling the moment he saw William wearing the top hat and faded remnants of the suit, putting up his hands in a greeting gesture - pumpkins and gentlemen! By the end of the show he seemed two decades younger, looking like an excited boy who snuck out to see a performance at the most ragged of the circuses that came to his tiny town. 

William’s thoughts were full of vague circus-themed memories. Probably from his own childhood, as he thought. Of course. There was nowhere else for them to come from - he haven’t visited a circus tent since he was twelve.

He set the rabbit behind the “cardboard” made of web and sticks in advance, choosing the smallest and lightest, almost a baby. It was the same rabbit that escaped the fate of a roast when they talked earlier. It was a pity it was as brown as the rest of them. William preferred the rabbits being pulled out of the top hat’s dark inside to be white. It made a bigger impression.

On the other hand, these brown rabbits had horns. What could make a bigger impression than that?

William rambled about jackalopes, then showed off the ‘empty’ hat. It seemed strangely light. He set it onto a cut log they used as a chair and conjured around, howling out the magic words.

Then he put his hand down the top hat, feeling about for the rabbit behind the false bottom, imagining how he’d pull it up by the horns. That way was easier, he’d had a chance to check.

There was no rabbit inside, though.

William reached in again.

Losing a rabbit in a top hat, no matter how small it is, would be pretty hard.

It was empty.

William felt a cold shiver. He gave the public a falsely self-important look. He wanted to see if they’d noticed him panicking. The pumpkin was quiet, pressed low to the ground. Wilson Percival Higgsbury, scientist, was sitting on the edge of the log. He was focused - not the kind of focus that would let him wait hours to see prey in the grass. The delighted focus, the expectation of something happening, the joy and the curiosity. The pure curiosity.

William noticed an auburn spot jump away from the other side of the log. It was a small rabbit, almost a baby.

The ice-covered grass far from the campfire crackled almost inaudibly beneath its weight.

Invisible to the ‘audience’, the rabbit turned to him, sniffed the air with an impossibly mocking expression of its tiny muzzle and disappeared into the darkness in one smooth leap.

He made a fist inside the hat. God damn it! How did it manage to escape?

William felt around the sides and under the false bottom again. Of course, there was no rabbit, at this moment the tiny bastard was probably hopping away in the night prairie.

“Sometimes there comes a moment for the strongest magic,” William said, trying to keep up the act. The thing he wanted most in that moment was for the show to go on. He wanted the shaggy pumpkin to jump around and bark. He wanted Wilson Higgsbury to look delighted and curious at the illusions he created and at William himself. He knew the only way out was through words, but he still hoped for something. Concentrated will, a delighted focus coming together with a different vector. A demand. An order. “In these cases, I…”

He reached back into the hat, and on top of the false bottom he felt warm fur and a wisp of cold air, like the breath of someone who just came in from the cold.

William couldn’t believe what he was feeling, his heart was beating feverishly, but he still clenched his fist - something squeaked - and threw his hand in the air. As if he wasn’t showing off a prop or a magic trick, as if that wasn’t a rabbit - rabbit? where did that come from? - but prey. 

Wilson applauded, the pumpkin barked so loud that it probably scared away all the rabbits except the one William was holding.

He bowed, smiling numbly, in accordance to the rules he ignored so many times in that one evening. Only then did he look at the rabbit.

It was an average size, a bit bigger than the escapee he’d put into the top hat. All in all, it was average in every regard. A perfect fit for magic tricks.

Perfect in everything, including the color.

“Bravo,” Wilson waved, wiping the tears of laughter from his eyes. “Brilliant. Why did you leave this job? Will you do more? We prepared some flowers, after all you’re- Are you okay? Maybe we shouldn’t kill the rabbit now, we’ve got dinner and the drying racks…”

William kept staring at the rabbit until Wilson came close and gently pulled his hand down.

“You’ll smother it, William.”

“It’s white,” William babbled. The rabbit hung loose in his grip, lifeless at a glance, but still jerking its hind leg around from time to time. “I- I’d put in a brown one. This one’s white.” 

The brown rabbit ran away, he wanted to say. This - thing - just appeared inside.

“You’re really pale yourself. Let me see the sutures.”

“They’ve healed,” William said, mostly out of habit. He didn’t resist when Wilson led him to the log closest to the fire. He still didn’t let go of the rabbit. “It’s… White. What does that mean?”

“Winter’s come at last,” Wilson said nonchalantly. “We’ve been waiting for a while. The rabbit fur changes immediately, I’ve told you before… that’s right, blue. Check out the tent. Blue. Welcome to this world’s winter… Oh, I knew it! You’re bleeding pretty much everywhere. Chester, gut! Drop the rabbit there. I’ll need to take your jacket off.”

Chester swallowed the white rabbit the same way he would any other. After a brief pause, he gathered his strength and spit a bundle of flowers at William’s feet. Every last petal was drowning in saliva, almost as thick as the spider web.

“It looks like he’s got indigestion from these,” William mumbled. There was still a couple of silks sticking out of a hidden pocket on his jacket, one yellow and one red. Maybe it was the proximity of these, and the one tied around Wilson’s neck as he took care of William’s wounds that were supposed to be long healed. Maybe it were the ruined flowers at his feet. In any case, instead of feeling scared or lost, he felt a peaceful emptiness. He felt like he would after a long day of chopping wood and battling spiders..

The pumpkin whined, seemingly ashamed.

“Well, Chester really loves loud and bright things, so he just wanted to make you happy. It does look indigestion, though. Happens to better people, too, sadly. What the- How did that happen? You didn’t lift anything heavier than a top hat, didn’t even swing your arms much… I thought I’d be able to take them out tomorrow, but this… okay, this part needs to go.”

William looked down. His shirt was covered in blood. He winced in pain, as Wilson started in doing what he said.

***

His sleep was fitful, once again hanging between wakefulness and dream. He saw lithe visions slip out of the shadows inside the tent, something that looked like a silhouette falling into smoke and dark, turning into bony clawed hands, empty eye sockets and teeth jutting out in endless rows. The black fog circled around him, cold like an arctic night. William felt frozen half to death, too weak to wake up or call for Wilson. The only thing he could do was try to worm deeper into the pile of bison covering his sleeping bag. He tried deeper under both of their rabbit pelt blankets, but under his fingers the fur paled to ivory-white, and he whimpered like a child. It went on until he heard a familiar huffing under his ear. The pumpkin abandoned Wilson outside and crawled under his arm. It yawned loudly and leaned into him, hitting one of his wounds. 

William didn’t mind.

He was ready to lie in a pool of his own blood if it meant escaping the fog and the cold.

At least then he would be able to get some actual sleep.

He woke up when Chester gave him another painful push, this time using all its small might. William thought it was one of its powerful jumps, with the top of pumpkin’s head crashing into him so hard that he trembled from head to toe.

“What was that for?” William mumbled. “Bad pumpkin.”

It was bright outside. Judging by the light falling through the tent flaps, morning was already turning into day. Chester snapped his teeth in William’s face and jumped back to the tent’s entrance, walking back and forth.

“What’s he doing again?” Wilson’s sleepy voice sounded right next to him.

“Pushing me around.”

“Bad Ches. Shame on you.” Judging by the rustling and the sudden chill William felt, Wilson pulled one of the blankets off of him and turned away. “Go play with the rabbits… or something.”

The pumpkin gave a short bark.

“Come on, go.” Wilson yawned, almost as loudly as the pumpkin. “Cold? I know, but you’ve got fur.”

Chester kept rustling about the entrance and then barked again and started whining.

Wilson yawned again and sat up. The blanket rustled off his shoulders. His voice was still rasped and angry, but he didn’t sound asleep anymore.

“Oh my god. It’s been what, two hours… no calm… no, it was only half an hour, before that you were kicking like a rabid horse. I’m never giving you all the blankets again.”

“It’s your own fault,” William grumbled, waking up fully. He was relieved to see that the tent was bright and empty. The fog was just a part of the night’s delirium. “The habit of sleeping in the same bed with whoever was obsolete back in King George’s time, no matter how cold it it is outside and how many blankets we’ve got. And a good deed won’t be forgotten.”

He flinched again, wincing in pain.

“Not you, too! Stop being childish! Are you trying to get a rematch?”

Wilson didn’t answer.

Then, still silent, he leaped up, rolled over William and rushed outside.

“Get up, now!” he shouted, crashing back inside a second later. ”Go, go, go!” 

“What the-”

The evening before Wilson was so worried about William’s wounds, but now, suddenly unceremonious, he yanked him up by the shoulders, forcing him on his feet.

“Chester, gulp all the meat outside! Carter, grab the bags, clothes, the sword, everything into the backpack, now! “

“Why are y-”

“Move!”

He grabbed a dozen things at once and disappeared outside.

William took out the chainmail from under the blankets. He forgot the last time he wore it at night. He slipped into it and remembered the three holes torn in the metal by the spider’s chitin ‘knives’. His mind was sluggish. The sword. He didn’t wear him yesterday, so it should next to the pillow, a little to the left. 

Those taken care of, he shoved whatever he could reach into the backpack - some bison fur, a sealed bowl of salve, two carrots - and walked out onto the clearing with a slight limp, backpack slung over his shoulder. The ground was iced over. Everything was covered in a thin layer of frost.

The ground trembled under his feet.

It didn’t seem like a push anymore.

Or it did, if the push was a movement of tectonic plates.

“The deer!” Wilson yelled in his face. He had a spear in his hand. ”Run!”

“Th- The deer? You said- You said it only comes at the en-”

“Forget what I said!”

The ground shook harder.

It sounded… big.

“But the win-”

“Theory doesn’t matter! We’re about to have an empirical fact out here!”

The ground screeched, moving apart. The tent trembled and fell to the side. One of the cauldron’s supports got knocked askance. Half a dozen drying racks fell apart like a house of cards. 

William barely managed to stay on his feet. Pain pierced his side.

“Run, run, run!”

William couldn’t bring himself to move.

There was… something. It approached from the forest. 

Maybe it was not a deer after all. Whatever William saw looked more like Wendigo - the spirit of cold and insanity, scaling the canadian forest, covered with frosted over fur, with hooves that broke apart pine trees.

William couldn’t tell how many eyes the creature had, as its head was in the clouds.

The ground rippled. The titanic force moved it together with William, Wilson and half of their camp. The entire world seized, waves of hills appearing where there were none, the chess fields falling into an unknown abyss.

William turned and ran.

They rushed towards the prairie - a magician, a scientist and a living pumpkin. William’s vision blurred from the fear and the pressure.

The earth stood up on end, shaking them off.

“The bastard’s circling us!”

“It wants the camp? It wants the camp, right?”

“It’s supposed to! What the hell’s going on with the ground? That didn’t happen before!”

William leaped forward. A patch of ground right in front of him suddenly rose, high as a building, showering hims with grass and debris.

“Maybe it saw us run?”

William had to turn back.

No, the thing did want their camp.

The camp was just done with already.

The enormous creature the size of a mountain jumped. It wasn’t just the ground that shook. It was the whole world.

A hand grabbed his wrist, not letting him slip into a wide rift. William thought that down there, he saw a broken quilt of colors, like he was looking at a broken mosaic from very high up.

“Scatter! You’re going to the prairie, I’m going to the chess fields!”

“They fell!”

“Not on them, to them!”

They fell, William realised.

The platform.

“I’m going to the fields, the prairie’s yours!”

Without listening to Wilson’s answer, William turned again and ran to the camp, giving it and the creature, that derelict giant covering half the sky, a wide berth. 

It ruins what was built, leaving alone what was in this world before, WIlson said. What was happening to the forest and the ground could hardly be called “leaving it alone”.

That means, the platform… God. It couldn’t have survived.

William ran, and the ground was like a stretched-out fabric, tearing in places. Judging by the heavy steps behind him, the creature chose him as its first victim.

William’s side hurt like a dozen burning needles were piercing it at once.

“The platform,” the words pulsed in his mind, “The platform.”

The gate.

Their chance to escape.

William was thrown forward. He hit the ground so hard the breath was knocked out of him. His injured body felt a wave of searing pain. He slipped over the broken marble, barely dodging a broken tree trunk flung after him. It hit a marble column and shattered it. 

The creature's strike came close.

Then there was a roar. There was a ringing in his ears and tendrils of smoke dancing across his vision. 

There, far forward, a tiny human figure lowered the handle of a spear, lodged deep into the monster’s dark fur.

William leaped on his feet. He hit the ground running, blood and movement pumping through his veins. He ran, slipping off the backpack, and then flung it as far to the left as he could.

The creature swung like a mountain would, watching its new target. The earth screeched and groaned as the monster turned.

Then it huffed. It was a long sound, like steam coming out a thousand pipes at once.

“We’ve got a minute, maybe less.” Wilson was suddenly near, grabbing his hand. William couldn’t keep his balance and they rolled down a marble hill together. ”And thanks.”

“The backpack will distract it for that long?” William said with the last of his breath. He ran slower. His lungs burned.

“Not the backpack. Someone on the prairie wasn’t pleased, and I’ve shown them the way. They’ll keep it busy.“

The colossal monster roared again. The thundering sound was shadowed by something else, a chorus of quieter fury, but there was no time to listen.

The marble cracked in front of them, falling apart, and Wilson managed to stop himself in time. William swung over the abyss. He accidentally glanced down.

And he screamed, despite the absence of breath in his lungs.

Inside the sudden crack beneath them was a spiral of teeth, pulsing, crashing together, struggling. There was a strange, impossible thought - it looked like the struggle of hauling ships on a river, keeping together something that should have burst long ago. 

”Down!” Wilson yelled.

William lurched back in terror, but then got grabbed by the shoulders and plunged deep into the terrible maw.


	11. The Potato Thing

_ The rain was coming down in sheets, turning the streets into rivers. It was dark, only a stray streetlight or other shone dimly through the mist. It was cold. _

_ “Is this Dowson-street or should we keep swimming?” _

_ “I can’t see it, my glasses are full of water. And I think you’re holding it upside down.“ _

_ “No, look, the train station is that way, so…” _

_ “That’s not the train station, Charlie, that’s a grease stain. I’m starting to doubt that they put accurate maps of the city streets on coasters.” _

_ “You’ve got a better idea or something? Check if it’s Dowson-street or… ouch! well, you can put down your jacket, I’m not getting wetter than that.” _

_ “I’m sorry… There’s the street sign, I just can’t-” _

_ “Pathrow square. Where’s the square supposed to be?” _

_ “Well, this trash can seems square enough.” _

_ A door on the second floor opened, spilling light into the rain. The fire escape shook. _

_ “Mister? Oh… Miss...is, could you tell us where-” _

_ “Well, you two lovebirds got yourselves a nasty situation with this weather. It’s just about raining frogs! It’s been a while since it last poured down like that. You’re not from around here, right? Eh, whatever. I take a dime ‘til midnight, and a half extra for two if you’re staying.“ _

William inhaled the rainwater and coughed.

It was  _ very _ cold.

Physically he felt a little better: his wounds healed over after all. There was still pain dragging on from the bruises, but it was bearable. It seemed he managed not to break any bones. The salve would help with the bruises… if they still had any. 

His head was much worse.

But he was still alive.

How did he manage to survive?

William sat up. Smoke danced across his vision, the image twisted and then came back. Like a sigh.

He was lying on top of a sleeping bag (a chunk of which was inexplicably gone), covered with a rabbit pelt blanket. He didn’t have the chainmail on.

It was dark. The campfire was close by, but its warmth barely reached him. A foot away he saw a familiar figure, back turned to him. It was still all sharp edges and broken lines, with the black and white pattern of the warm vest and torn remainders of shirt sleeves that were white a really long time ago.

This untidy, unattractive sight made him feel an unexpected fondness. Even his headache quieted down. 

“Tell me…” William cleared his throat, but his voice was still rasped.

Wilson flinched and turned. For a second, William saw the maniac ready to eat him again. Maybe it were the shadows and the unstable firelight. Then, his expression softened.

“Oh, you’re awake. How are you feeling?”

“My head isn’t so great… you… Higgsbury, tell me, do you know anyone named Charlie?”

“Well, that’s not the rarest of names. There was that grocer in Ipswich, for one,” Wilson scratched his nose. “He threatened to burn my house down if I didn’t pay what I owed him for a year before the end of the month. I couldn’t do that in the end, you know. Too busy strolling around another world. I wonder if he delivered on that threat.”

William stood up and staggered closer to the campfire with his sleeping bag in tow. Not only did every step he take cause a flaring headache, his head started spinning the second he got up. He sat back down. 

The questions filling his mind couldn’t be stopped with pain or vertigo.

“No, I… meant a woman. Do you know a woman by that name?”

“Not a single one,” Wilson shrugged. “Don’t shove your sleeping bag into the fire, by the way, it’s our supply of kindling.”

William pulled the blanket over his shoulders and wrapped his arms around himself. The freezing air brought no relief and no wake up call, like it would if he were drunk or half-asleep.

It was just cold.

Very cold.

His vision blurred. The headache wrapped around skull.

“Here,” Wilson took something off his neck. ”We may have no flowers, but this thing is a bit warmer and works the same way. A bright idea… I haven’t thought of it before.”

William opened his hands and soon a bright red silk laid across his fingers. It was one of the props from his ‘show’.

The top hat.

The rabbit.

The deer.

The gnashing teeth in the darkness.

“How did we get here?”

“Jumped through a wormhole. Did you see the teeth in the ground? That’s kind of like a tunnel, you can travel from one end of the island to the other through these. I suppose you’ve made this world like a mosaic and scattered these around for transportation. This one, though… They aren’t usually that colorful. Hey, don’t just sit there, Carter, you’re shaking.”

Tendrils of smoke seeped from his palm, covering the red fabric, pooling over it like a stone on a high tide. Yet, under the smoke the red color just got brighter, pulsing like blood through tired veins, glowing. Burning.

William shivered as Wilson took the silk out of the smoke and tied it around his neck. Wilson’s fingers were freezing cold, but the silk was warm. Of course it wasn’t burning, just warm from being around another’s neck, retaining warmth in the cold air.

The calm from the flower dye made the smoke disappear. His vision cleared.

It was just a hand like any other. No smoke to be seen.

Just hallucinations.

Just some nonsense.

“Where did the deer go?”

“I’m not sure where we went, honestly. Since the ground isn’t falling apart anymore I’d say it can’t be close by… And judging by the terrain both the deer and our camp should be far away.”

“My chainmail?”

“Here it is… I took it off of you… there was no danger, and you’d freeze to death in it. I wouldn’t touch it if I were you. It’s worse than a frost hound right now.”

Wilson pointed at the small pile of firewood. The transparent greyish metal laid on top, covering it from snow.

There was blood frozen to it.

“You’re not hungry, I hope?”

“No,” William said mindlessly. He blinked. For a second, he saw strings of scarlet spider off the blood spots.

He grasped the silk on his neck, clawing at the fabric.

No, no, it was all nonsense.

“I’m upset too, but I don’t think it’s time for suicide yet. Especially in such a convoluted way.”

William forced a really pathetic smile and looked at Wilson, trying to focus his vision and him mind. Everything was pulling apart, smoke tendrils danced across his vision. He needed it to stop.

Wilson’s looked much like when they first met - scars, face sunken from malnourishment, grime and a mussed black mane of hair. Maybe he was still ready to kill him. And eat.

But the expression on his face wasn’t threatening at all.

It was the opposite.

William’s vision slowly cleared.

“What do we do now?” he asked, not taking his eyes away. He didn’t want to risk sinking into the smoke full of teeth and claws again. 

Wilson shrugged.

“What can we do? We survive.”

“Do we have any chance of finding the camp?”

“I’ve got no idea how far we are from there. We’ll be lucky if it’s the same island… but then… Carter, look. I’ve gone back to camps destroyed by the deer before, to collect what was left. After this deer there can’t be much to collect. I can’t see the point in going back.”

“What about the platform?”

“What about it? It’s in pieces. And that’s the best case scenario, it’s probably just gone. You saw what happened.”

“No,” William shook his head. “No, it’s fine.”

“So you what, managed to see it from where we were?”

“No, I- I didn’t see it.”

“Then what the hell makes you so sure it’s fine?”

“It is fine,” William said, desperate pressure in his voice.

Of course it was fine.

That… that was the gate.

The way out of there.

It was the way back. The only way to his old life, to his travels, to magic tricks. To fame, if he got lucky. To cities, trains, telegraph, to radio that didn’t howl and wasn’t use to search for anything.

To the world without monsters. To the world of people.

To the world without hunger.

Of course the platform was fine. If it wasn’t there...

No, no, of course not, don’t even think, no, no, no, nonono!

“Better?” Wilson asked nonchalantly, weakening his grip.

William breathed in feverishly. Wilson had shoved him face first into a snow pile and only just let him up. To be exact, the pile was two thirds swamp moss. It grew on the bumpy ground before winter hit, and even in the cold it seeped dark, stale water.

“Don’t thank me. Water proved its effectiveness last time.”

Wilson finally let go, and William was wiping his face, huffing and spitting water.

He was a little embarrassed, but he noticed that neither fear nor shame had the same power over him anymore. 

“That’s not even water, that’s-”

“It is, just in a different physical state.”

“You mean muck? I see the science of your times has really moved forward a lot.”

“Have I mentioned your sense of humor is nonexistent?”

“And yours is a shining beacon. We have to find our way back, Higgsbury.”

“And you know which way to go?”

“I’ve got-”

William stopped and looked around nervously.

The radio.

It got left in the backpack he threw at the deer.

Well, what of it? The deer didn’t get to the backpack, or at least William didn’t see it happen. The radio was part of the gate. A piece needed to escape. The radio could have survived. 

No, it must have.

Just like the platform.

They just needed to get there.

“We- we, uh, we’ll navigate by the sun once it’s up. And the radio is next to the camp. I remember where the backpack fell, I’ll find it.”

Wilson smirked bitterly and sat down close to the campfire.

“Alright. Sure thing, Carter. We’ll go back, we’ll find the old camp, a platform that’s right as rain and Maxwell’s radio without a single scratch. Why not? What does it matter where we go? But we’ll make a new camp for the rest of the winter when we find a suitable place, and… if we really find the old one… and have to face the deer, it will be your fault.”

Silence followed. William took a handful of snow off the ground, trying to clean his face. The layer of snow was thin, only a few inches deep. With the blueish white mass, as ghostly as the metal of his sword, his hand dug up mud. 

It was thicker.

“A marsh.”

“Yes,” Wilson shrugged. After what he did, after their argument, he wasn’t even winded. “It may be the worst place around here. In winter time especially.”

William took a few deep breaths, trying to calm down. Panicking really was useless.

His damp skin felt the tingling cold even after he dried it off as well as he could.

“It’s always bad on a marsh.”

"Indeed?”

There was that strange feeling in his voice again. The curiosity that makes some people look into the abyss. 

And jump in.

“I got lost on the wetlands once,” William explained reluctantly. “Lindow Moss, maybe you’ve heard. Oh, right, you’re american. Well, it’s not a good place to be altogether. Especially for a child I was then.”

He didn’t mention he got lost with his brother. That time they were smart enough to stop wandering around in circles, risking drowning, and sit down to wait for help. The boys were found in the twilight hours of the next day. He thought it would be better if their mother yelled at them, instead of praising another psychic that allegedly helped the dogs find the trail.

On the marsh, the sounds were the worst part. The marsh seemed alive. It breathed. It lurked. It moved like a slippery beast of the deep. William remembered the helplessness he felt.

He listened. If the darkness around them was a marsh, it was keeping quiet.

‘Like a predator lying in wait.’

Wilson nodded. Maybe he found a place for another piece of his never-ending puzzle. Maybe he just agreed that marshes were awful.

“In any case,” he said, all businesslike, “your bag is gone, and there is little left in mine. We’ve got enough food for two days, if we ration it. There isn’t much to hunt on the marsh, except spiders, birds and- no, if the pigmen are gone, these aren’t likely to be around either. We’ve also got warm clothes, one sleeping bag and a single blanket. Not much fuel, which is bad. Watch your step very carefully- Though it may be useless, it’s winter after all. But If you see something like… movement, jump like hell. That’s a tentacle. Don’t ask questions, just jump. Another thing: collect everything that burns and try to conserve the heat. I’ll make a couple of warmers, but these aren’t a cure-all. The chance of survival is there, as always, but we’ll have to do our best."

William frowned. Throwing the backpack at the deer seemed like such a good idea, but now… At least the chainmail and the sword were still there.

“Where’s Chester?” he asked, after suddenly realising something was missing. The orange firelight on the snow reminded him of the living pumpkin’s shaggy fur.

Instead of answering, Wilson turned and took something out of his backpack. It was the bone with an eye on one end. “He’s still carrying it around,” William thought, terrified. He tried not to think about the fact that the bone could become a part of their meal in the next few days.

The eye was shut.

“I don’t know where he is,” Wilson said, smiling and waving the terrible thing around. “He must have fallen behind because of the wormhole. He’ll catch up in a day or two. Chester follows the trail really well. He’ll come back.”

Then, there was silence.

It went on and on.

Wilson slowly lowered his hand along with the bone.

“Yes,” William said, carefully. Breath came out in white puffs of steam, cooling off after a second. “Of course.”

***

“-See, I didn’t even call captain Scott an absolute donkey, even though he deserved it!”

“God, Higgsbury, why are you so harsh on your fellow man? Scott might be an Englishman, but he’s a scientist, too! He’s a researcher!”

“He’s an idiot! What sane man would go to the middle of nowhere to eat nothing but seal fat and hard tacks for months in minus fifty degrees?”

“He’s ready to do more to explore Antarctica!”*

William slipped and almost fell.

He had still hoped that the snow would melt come morning and the air would warm up, like that night he watched the lights inside the sapphire. He’d been wrong. Maybe if he had a sapphire this time… no, that was all nonsense. Gibberish. Hallucinations.

The upper layer of the marsh froze over, turning into one big, uneven skating rink. There would be bumps and uneven tufts of dry grass here and there, and the snowed over low points concealed treacherous patches of open water, leading down into the quagmire. Wilson almost fell under the ice a dozen feet away from their campfire. William shivered, thinking about what could have happened if they fell out of the wormhole into one of those ‘windows’.

Their supply of fuel was slim, but carrying both it and everything else in one backpack was hard, and there was no material to make another. Wilson, through something that looked more like sorcery than any magic trick, had managed to tie everything together into one big bale. He’d bundled up the straw, the firewood and the branches using the sleeping bag and two lengths of rope.

Of course, William was the one to carry the load.

After an hour of walking across the iced-over land with that weight on his shoulders, William came up with the unfortunate comparison between them and the explorers of the frozen wastes, lead by the famous polar captain. The expedition and its happy return was a part of small talk for several months a year earlier. Even William’s mother was partial to the topic, even though she was more interested in “ice spirits” than in the lives of Scott and his men. William couldn’t seriously blame her. In other words, the polar explorers and their leader were common knowledge, both in England and in the New World.

William certainly couldn’t predict such an outburst.

“Like hell he wanted to explore! He just wanted to be the first! Didn’t even stop to think it over! The goddamn sportsman wanted to get to the finish line before all else, to one up everyone, to get the biggest catch - and there you go, he perished like a dog!”

“What are you talking about? Did you not learn history, or something? Scott’s alive, he came back safely. It was in all the papers, he toured with lectures, there’s no way that isn’t known in your times. Jesus, it’s barely been a couple of decades!”

William slipped again. Had Wilson not grabbed his shoulder he’d fall over for sure.

“No, he kicked the bucket,” Wilson hissed in his face with a sudden hatred, “And you know why? Because he didn’t want to stop.”

He breathed heavily. William sniffled and tried to step back, slipping again. He grabbed onto Wilson with both hands. The ‘warmer’, a sack of crushed rock and something else that Wilson made and warmed over a fire, shifted under his vest but didn’t fall out.

“Everything’s known, Carter. It’s just that some people learn history and some don’t. He could have stayed home… have breakfast, lunch and supper every day… stretch in an armchair next to the fireplace… he could have stayed. Or he could have thought everything through, at least! But he was just tempted to go to that damned Pole again, with the promise of recognition, world renown, fame for your dear England… all patents in the world… all knowledge in the universe… ah, who cares, a simple hint was enough, and he went out of his way to prepare, get everything ready and nail his own coffin shut. He went there, that absolute idiot. He went so far, there was no way to save him. There was nobody to save him, nothing but him and him and his… thirst. And he- they- all died. Him and those who followed him. Just because he couldn’t say no to himself.

“He came back,” William said again, quietly.

“You mean the expedition of 1904, right? - Wilson gave him a crooked smile. “Right, you said that for you it’s still 1905.”

“There was another one?”

Wilson said nothing. He let go of his companion and turned away.

“Maybe you’re right. We don’t learn history these days… look, Carter, the sun is in its zenith. It’s winter, it’s not going any higher. If we’re trying to reach the old camp we need to go this way.”

William looked up at the sky. The sun was so low he didn’t have to bend his neck much. The winter in this world was more like a polar one than he’d like.

At least they’re going to the camp, not anywhere else. William felt the warmer through the shirt and the vest. It was slowly cooling off. No, wearing the chainmail wasn’t a good idea. It was on top of the pile, he’d slip it on in no time if he needed to. No enemy appeared out of nowhere, not even the hellish hounds. He could see everything a hundred yards over on this frozen plane. There weren’t even birds around, just the uneven ground covered with snow, making him slip and stumble. Where could the threat even come from?

They chose a thorned tree as their reference mark. It looked like the one on the chess fields, or at the place they battled the hounds in. The tree didn’t seem to be far, but William knew the tricks distance played on the eye, especially in a place so barren there was nothing to measure it against.

Cutting these trees was a nightmare. William thought that they’d waste more salve than they’d get fuel. It was a grim thought. Still, there were no other trees in sight, and all the small tufts of grass and moss were covered with a layer of ice and snow. Which meant they were wet all over.

“There’s a shrub over there,” William said, taking out his sabre.

“Well, take care of it then. The more fuel we have the better. Need any help?”

“Mhm. Turns out there’s more than one.”

Wilson stopped and changed his course, coming to William’s side. The pack was off William’s shoulders, resting to the side. He cut one of the bushes, crouching next to it. The small valley was drowning in snow, but a little further under the snow there was three lumps, two big and one a little smaller. 

“We’re still getting lucky,” Wilson said, putting a hand on William’s shoulder. Thanks to your new vision.

William looked at him, confused.

Wilson raised his foot and kicked at the ground roughly, tearing off the layer of ice, baring the ground beneath. 

Instead of soil, there was paving stone of a sidewalk.

“A- a road? But how?”

“That’s irrelevant,” Wilson said condescendingly, “It’s, well, another quirk of this place. See the lumps other there? These really are important.”

He approached the nearest one and gently wiped off some snow. For a second, William thought that there, lying under the snow, was Chester. It was just a trick of the eye. That was just a regular, not at all living and very edible pumpkin.

“It will last… I don’t know, two days, maybe. And there’s more. Help me out, please-”

Wilson often said things William doubted were true. Some of them even seemed completely insane. Still, his practical advice was never useless. The memory of the last twenty years might have been gone from William’s mind, but every other memory was quite clear. Especially the sight of the twisted, dented skin on that slim back, sand falling off the round indents, scars crossing over, the bumps of the ribs and the spine visible under this terrible map. He’d never forget that. 

That’s why when the snow around him, covering the ice, the stones that looked like a sidewalk, the layer of marsh grass, and deeper, deeper, the marsh itself, the quagmire that breathed and laid in wait like a beast suddenly breathed in a full lungful again - when the snow around him moved and fell away, William-

_ Don’t ask questions, just jump. _

-just jumped away, knocking his companion away with him. Away from the shrubs and the pumpkins, just hoping the distance would be enough.

The snow exploded.

A whole forest of thick, purple, awful-looking tentacles swung up into the sky. They were almost his height, covered with spikes. They jerked and slashed around furiously, writhing and shaking. It was as if they were angry the prey got away, unable to reach the travelers sitting on the snow to the side.. 

A minute passed, then another. All the tentacles hid under the snow again one by one. Back into the marsh underneath, to lie in wait again. The valley looked peaceful. Only the dark smoke seeped through the mess of snow.

A peaceful bait, like for the rabbits, so that later they could be thrown into the dark, smoke- filled backpack, and pulled out by the ears to...

The pumpkin was untouched. The next one over was, too. The snow was knocked off its sides, but nothing more severe. It turned out the third one, the smallest one of them, wasn’t a pumpkin at all. If not for the grey shine of its elongated sides, William would take it for… maybe a really ugly squash. Or a potato. 

Wilson sighed heavily. William realised it was the first sound he heard from him after the sudden attack.

“The dilemma of free cheese,” Wilson mumbled. “Alright. You can reach the rope, right, Carter?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s notes:
> 
> *William and Wilson are talking about captain Robert Scott, the famous British explorer from the first half of the 20th century. He was a part of two big expeditions to Antarctica. The first one lasted from 1901 to 1904, and he came home safely at the end of it. His other cruise to Antarctica was in 1910. It ended two years later with his death. Both voyages were watched by the whole world.
> 
> One of the goals of his last expedition was to reach the South Pole, a point far on the continent. During the expedition Scott had somewhat of an unofficial race with another explorer, a Norwegian named Amundsen, who started his journey from a different point of the continent with the same goal in mind. To win would be to reach the Pole first. The victory would be political, too, as they represented their respective countries. Scott reached the pole later than Amundsen and him and a part of his group died due to the harsh conditions on the way back.
> 
> I’d like to add that Wilson’s opinion (biased due to personal circumstances) contradicts the generally accepted one, especially in his era. A similar point of view, although not as extreme, exists today.


	12. The Package

William had lost count. What day was it? Thirty eight? Thirty seven? The life in the camp turning into a death trap with the emergence of the deer threw off his calculations. 

So, he started counting again.

That happened often in this ailing, twisted world. Starting over after all the struggle has been for nothing. After watching the fruits of your labor crumble under the monster’s feet or disappear into the ground.

It’s day six, he thought, dragging his feet forward. Day five since they put out the fire and started their journey to the west, towards the platform and the ruined camp. Which were god knows where.

_ God knows on which island. God knows if they still existed, at all. _

Day five since they’ve found the metal potato thing - the last piece of the door, according to Wilson.

Day three since Wilson broke one of the boomerangs after killing a bony crow that ended up being their dinner.

Day two since they got caught in a snowstorm. It was a short one, thank God. The heavy clouds beforehand made the air a little warmer, but in the end all they got was wet snow and piercing, bitterly cold wind.

It was day one since their previous supply of food ran out, leaving them only with the three quarters of a pumpkin they’ve found. 

William bleakly noted that the cold made the hunger worse. The food that seemed filling in the summer would only dull the feeling of emptiness. The endless marsh they traversed just didn’t want to fully freeze over, despite the icy temperatures. His feet ended up soaked through by midday, and the thin ice broke, wearing at his shoes. They were full of holes, patched a hundred times over and held together by fabric wrapped around them by now. Sometimes, the shards of ice would reach higher and cut at his ankles. 

Strangely, what would put him down with pneumonia back there, on the East Coast or in his distant homeland, was easier to bear here. All he felt was nausea, a slight fever and the headache. It wore on him slowly, burning away at his sanity with the thin wisps of dark smoke.

And then there were the things he heard. Words broken apart, short sounds like from a broken record. 

They didn’t come often. William heard them, faint in the periphery. They always ended up being the crunching of snow under his footsteps or the crackling of sparks escaping the fire.

They were not real.

_ they were _

Hallucinations. Delirium.

Maybe he did become more resilient, if only because he’d be dead otherwise. That’s what William thought about over and over, rolling the thought in his mind. When he still had the strength to think.

It usually happened at night. He stood guard and Wilson slept. There was nothing left to do but watch the fire, keeping the yellow flame from dissipating in black smoke. The night dragged on, long and viscous, as if they really were wading through the South Pole. 

The dawn was short, the daytime even shorter. Then, the twilight fell again. William started wrapping his hands before cutting wood, like he did in the early days. All the trees they could find were the thorned ones. No other kind grew on the deceptively quiet marsh. It didn’t deter the worst of them, the ones that pierced the wrappings through.

They had to get enough fuel. Gathering enough to save for later was almost impossible. The night was too long, the trees and the shrubs too rare. William dried the tufts of grass on the fire, together with the wet fabric that wrapped his shoes and his vest that soaked with sweat and iced over by the evening. He found the grass under the snow. Sometimes they got lucky and there was a bit more where they set up camp, and sometimes there wasn’t any at all. Leaving the campfire at night was a death sentence.

Sometimes they barely managed to find a tree in time. Then, whoever’s turn it was to grapple with the thorns took up the axe and the other would crawl on the ground, digging through the snow and breaking the ice to find wet, blackened grass. It’s been dead since autumn. 

William felt himself slipping into insanity. The warmer stones Wilson made back in the previous camp got left behind, and they couldn’t make more without the strange machine. He didn’t know if the stones would help with the ice on his vest. The sack of crushed pebbles certainly didn’t, but the cold lessened when he moved, only gnawing at his face, hands and feet. At least the stones would have made their stops warmer. The pebbles couldn’t do much there. Still, he had to appreciate them. A couple of times they saved him from severe frostbite. 

Sleeping on separate sides of the campfire was a luxury they couldn’t afford anymore. After finishing the watch, one would lie down next to the other, trying to conserve the smallest sliver of heat. 

The nights were always colder.

The frost was awful.

The hunger was worse.

The hunger made a nest in William’s stomach, never fully quenched. Sitting by the fire at night, he remembered the papers reporting Scott’s expedition. By day, he sometimes imagined the explorers back there, in another world. How they, too, would wade through the snow, careful not to fall under the ice into the frozen water. At night the similarities seemed nonexistent. Oh, how much food did Scott and his people must have had! How warm their fur-lined sleeping bags must have been! They didn’t need to burn them to survive.

He struggled with these memories he only knew through the papers, but he struggled alone. Talking to Wilson about the polar explorer-

_ \- and especially the voices, the laugh, the broken words and phrases, - no, no, he was no idiot- _

-he’d be worse off, he knew that. William didn’t believe that statement about Scott’s death. He remembered the papers. Very clearly. And being honest, - he told himself, tossing another thorned branch into the fire - no sane man would try to  _ come back  _ to the Pole. 

He winced - the headache was always worse at night.

Wilson was lying to him.

William couldn’t help noticing that Wilson behaved more and more suspiciously every day.

Since the jump through the teethed chasm, Wilson stopped shaving. He’d left the razor in the camp. More and more, the scientist seemed like the maniac William met at the clearing back at the start. He seemed bleak, his empathy weakening. William couldn’t get a word out of him sometimes - not that he’d tried. Sometimes, though, Wilson would give out whole speeches. These got louder with time, more erratic, less fitting the moment. Sometimes his words would be morbid. The evening of day four, William sat there helpless, the sabre in his hands as Wilson, half-asleep and pressed close to him, hissed something about experiments, blood flowing through the lanes on the edge of the table, and jumps, and a mouse cut in two but still alive. 

_ Too many broken words. _

Sleeping side by side was nothing like their stay in the old camp and the peace William missed so much. Their travel seemed to weaken and wear the feeble bond they’ve shared.

Chester didn’t come back. The eye on the bone stayed shut. William didn’t believe they’d see the living pumpkin again. One day he was looking over their pitiful supply of food. They’ve found nothing edible for a while. William listened to Wilson’s strange lines and thought maybe Chester was better off.

The spiked tentacles hadn’t appeared again. The snow in the traveler’s path was untouched. Maybe the monsters lurked and lied in wait, like the marsh itself. At least they couldn’t get to the campfire in the darkness.

The spiders were gone, too. They met no monsters and saw none. William was ready to eat spider meat. He was ready to eat anything, really. The undefeatable hunger, the bitter cold, the headache and the half-fever made the voice in his head seem  _ real _ . He  _ heard  _ it with his own ears, and day by day it grew stronger, more coherent. It was painfully familiar, long-forgotten. The voice of a woman - sad, animated, sincere, sometimes loud, as if she was on stage. Little by little, he started to realise - she was talking about magic shows. She was talking about him. Him, William Carter. The magician.

Maybe that’s how his assistant would sound if he had one. Even in a world full of food he could barely get enough for himself. What woman would work for him?

Especially one like… like the one he heard in the strange, smoke-filled delirium. Like the one he saw when lying unconscious or dangling in the terrible spider’s grip.

Her name was supposed to be Charlie.

William walked across the frozen marsh, exhausted and weak with hunger. He endured the frost and Wilson’s speeches. On the edge of his mind, there was Charlie’s voice, a forgotten, made-up echo. It was there as he kept the fire lit in the crushing darkness and as he sat next to Wilson, tossing and turning in his sleep, a hand on the man’s shoulders to calm him. William tried to roll a pebble in his fingers, but it always fell. He ruminated on many things. He thought about food, the world he left behind, about food again, and about the platform waiting for him at the end of the road.

***

It was day eight. William was sure. He wasn’t sure of many things these days, but the number of sunrises was one of them. He kept count.

They headed westward, to the old camp: William was adamant they stay on course, and Wilson seemed consumed by indifference, at least until they found the next patch of shrubbery or a tree. Suddenly, he noticed something not far ahead. Several boulders covered with snow stood in a tight circle, with not one, but two trees looming over. The place seemed ideal for a stop. William realised him and Wilson didn’t even waste time talking: they exchanged glances and walked on: a little faster, but still as weary.

Their approach slowed down after a while.

It seemed they weren’t the only ones to notice this place.

“Do the pigmen live here?” William asked once they stopped, still a distance away. He took out his sabre. Wilson, on the other hand, didn’t reach for the axe. He was focused. He listened.

It was very quiet.

“No. This… If the world wasn’t broken I’d tell you to get your weapon ready and run.”

“Monsters?”

“Yes. Usually it’s two hounds and some creatures that look like walruses armed with darts. Hunters. I seemed like suitable prey for them. Do you hear whistling?”

“None.”

“They call their dogs that way.”

“I can’t hear any whistling, but these things over there look dog-like enough.”

“I see that, but their hounds didn’t sleep. Be quiet for a second.”

Wilson moved forward as quietly and carefully as he could. William stayed back, grateful that the hilt of his sabre wasn’t freezing cold, unlike the metal of the chainmail and the cutting edge. Maybe it was made of something different. It certainly looked less immaterial than the blade.

William saw his companion walk over to one of the sleeping figures in the snow and leaned towards it. Then, he straightened and waved William over.

“It’s safe,” he said loudly, once William was near. “But this is a strange shape.”

“What shape?”

The dog-like creatures looked just like the ones that chased him up the thorned tree once. The difference was in the color - every single hound was white, and William felt a cold shiver go down his spine when he remembered what one of those things did to Wilson back then. The hounds were dead, or maybe just asleep. They were stretched out in the shallow snow.

“The circle.”

The hounds surrounded a snow dwelling in the middle of the circle. It looked like a building made by the Inuit.

“Are you sure they won’t wake up?” William asked in a hushed tone. The dwelling was interesting, but not nearly as much as the creatures lying next to it. They weren’t moving, despite the noise the travelers made, enough to wake up a pack of normal dogs. 

“I’m not sure of anything around here. Still, I don’t think they will. I’ve seen circles like these before. There would be a stick with a sapphire or a ruby in the middle. The hounds slept as long as it stayed in place. It was a constraint of sorts. Touch it and the reaction will start, so you’ll have to hit the road. But this circle is unusual.”

William looked at the snow building. Was it even possible to make? The snow was barely two inches deep all through the marsh.

“Maybe the stick is inside?” he guessed. “In the middle of the… house?”

“That’s the weird part.” Wilson scratched his chin. The beard almost covered his skin. “I haven’t seen such a combination, ever. A walrus igloo and a hound circle.”

William waited. Then he opened his mouth to ask, but Wilson glanced at him and started talking first.

“No. They are nothing like the pigmen. They were, at least. Sure, they were anthropomorphic and look clothed, but that’s superficial. In reality, they are aggressive animals without a glimpse of intellect. The whistling, the hounds - it’s all an instinct. A sort of inner programming.”

“They did build the house, though, didn’t they?”

“It wasn’t them. The houses just appeared when winter came. It was Maxwell.”

“Right, and the pigmen just had to do it themselves.” William said, suddenly angry. “The walruses even wore clothing, you just said they did! Why are you so sure about the intelligence of one but not the other? Just because you haven’t seen those walrus creatures build their houses?”

“Well, _you_ haven’t seen either of them!” Wilson yelled. For a second, William worried the dogs would wake up after all. “I called _that_ clothing just for convenience! It had nothing in common with the pig’s straw skirts! God, they didn’t even wear it, it just _grew_ _there_! It was just skin and bones of a different color! Maybe you’ll take the previous research into account? You think I haven’t come close to these things? Don’t believe me? Want me to show you the scars?”

“Oh I do believe! You’ve got a scar for every question! Show me, why don’t you. We’ll both be dead soon anyway. Even if the hounds won’t wake up without that stick or whatever, the monsters inside that place just had to get up from all this noise!”

Wilson stepped towards him, threateningly, but then stopped. He stared at his hands, palms up, as if it was the first time he saw the black fabric and straw wrapped around them.

Then he took off his backpack and grabbed the axe.

“You’re right, Carter,” he said. “There are no walruses inside. If there were, they’d be out already. They don’t wait long.”

“Why do you need the weapon?” Carter asked, gripping the sabre. “Are you going to kill the hounds?”

It would be hard for him to take the pack off his shoulders. The improvised straps were rope, some of it tied around his waist to support the weight of the load. Was it possible to battle with it on his shoulders?

_ “Come on, Maxie. Just believe in yourself.” _

“No. You hit one and the others attack too. I want to see what’s inside.”

William was silent. Wilson lowered the axe and moved for the entrance to the snow dwelling.

“Wait! Have you lost your mind?”

“There might be food inside. The whole house wouldn’t be too bad to have, too.”

“There might be owners inside!”

“I told you, the probability’s low. I’ve got an axe just in case, anyway.”

“Against two monsters at once? You said there were two of them!”

Wilson froze.

The frozen marsh laid in wait. It lurked. A beast under the snow, a decomposing creature in the dark.

“I didn’t say that,” he said slowly. “I said they had two hounds.”

“Well I misheard,” William said, heated, “it doesn’t change anything. Going in is certain death.”

“There are two of them, usually,” Wilson continued. “two walruses. Two hounds.”

He turned to William - slowly, mechanically. It reminded him of the gears turning in the mechanic bishop.

“Higgsbury… Higgsbury, what the hell are you- two, three, four, who cares, you won’t be able to get them in such a small space.”

Wilson smiled, and the smile was all teeth.

“You’re right again.”

He stepped to the left and made a wide, inviting gesture with the axe.

“ _ You’re _ going in.”

William felt his knees go weak. The sabre seemed frozen in his hands.

“You- You’re crazy, you- What the- Higgsbury, I’m on your side, did you forget, I-”

“You think I can’t you hear mumble at night, huh?” Wilson bared his teeth again.

“So now _ I’m  _ mumbling?  _ You  _ give whole speeches!”

“Come on,”

_ “Come on, Maxie,” _

“crawl inside. Fine, you can take a weapon.”

“Wilson, please,” William said, pointing the sabre outwards, “I’m not Maxwell.”

There was no answer. Several moment went on in silence. In his peripheral vision dark wisps of smoke seeped out of their footprints in the snow. The smoke flowed off Wilson’s hair and flooded his cheeks. It shimmered through everything: the marsh, the pale snow and the dark, blurry silhouette of a man with an axe.

William took a deep breath.

“Fine. Fine, I’m going in. May I wear the chainmail? It won’t take- Alright, alright, I’m moving.”

His fingers trembled as he struggled to untie the pack. The weapon he couldn’t risk letting go of was in the way. Then, the pack fell to the ground with a splat.

Under Wilson’s stare, William slowly walked to the entrance of the snow house. It was a narrow crawl space made of dense snow bricks - who knew where these came from. To get in he’d have to crawl on all fours. It seemed like a potential trap.

He crouched next to it.

He put a hand on the snow and it blackened. Underneath there was the dark water of the marsh.

_ Smoke. _

He looked back.

“You…” he cleared his throat. “Higgsbury, you’d better climb something and stay there. I’ve got no idea what’s going to happen.”

He was surprised to see his companion standing next to the farthest tree. It haven’t been more than a second, William haven’t heard anything at all, and yet there Wilson was. He looked more like a crazed vagrant, but more like one who occupied a corner in an asylum, not like a maniac ready to eat somebody.

And his expression… He look flabbergasted.

William grasped his sword and went forward, trying not to cut himself. He crawled and he listened.

There was no sound. Only darkness clouded ahead, glimmering.

_ claws and teeth _

everything smelled of old dust, the dust of all the world’s old attics where kids played, pretending to be explorers and travelers, no matter their names and destinations: jungle or vast ice planes of the poles.

“How can snow smell like that,” William thought, and then the tunnel was over.

_ William straightened.  _

_ “Found it,” he said, waving around a piece of fabric. _

_ “Mhm. Collected all the dust around for this junk.” _

_ “I’ll see what you say when we stick it on the box.” _

_ “Mhm.” _

_ The voice was absent-minded. The first line wasn’t much beyond small talk. Charlie just came back from the post office and now she was captivated by the rectangular package and the letters they’ve received. _

_ “The box barely has a bottom… We should nail it on right first… Here, that’s yours.” _

What kind of a trick was that? How was it possible to hide a smoke bomb in a letter?

_ “It’s from Jack,” William sighed, barely noticing anything around him. He turned the envelope over and opened it. Inside, there was a letter and some money hidden between the pages. William felt awkward. _

_ “My brother had a lucky deal with the cattle this year.” He sat down, setting the fabric on the table and glanced over the first few lines. He didn’t know why he said that out loud. And why it sounded so much like an excuse. _

_ “You’re lucky to have a family like that,” Charlie said, glancing on him. ”I wish I had a brother like that. Or, hell, I wish I had a brother at all. Maybe then dad would’ve left me alone.” _

_ The next envelope - white and proper - was addressed to her. She crumpled it without so much as a glance and threw it into the bin. _

_ “The package is also for you.” _

_ “It’s from Jack, too” Wiliam put down the letter and took the package. _

Such a small thing couldn’t weigh so much. His hands refused to move.

_ “Oh, just splendid.” He twiddled with it, annoyed. “What the devil, Jacky.” _

_ “What’s in it?” _

_ “He says it’s a book.” He waited. It was even harder to go on than it was to hold the money. “You were talking about family. I didn’t have much luck with them either, to be honest. My mother’s got a fancy for… well, it’s more of a hobbie taken too far… well, ghosts, ectoplasm, psychics, this kind of thing.“ _

_ “Like spiritism?” _

_ “Yeah.” _

_ Charlie put a hand over his shoulders and leaned over the package. _

_ “Come on. It’s interesting.” _

_ “It’s quackery. She’s had conmen bleeding her dry for twenty odd years. There’s always half a dozen mediums, exorcists and other filth boarding at home. Everything’s on the house, of course.” _

_ “Well, you’re right, it’s mostly fraud. But I’ve always thought there’s... something about it. Isn’t it comforting to think there’s something, you know… Uncalculated. Not created by human mind, but actually magical? Actually powerful?” _

_ The weight and the warmth of her arms around him felt so good. _

_ “I never believed in this stuff. It’s hard to believe, when you see… that every day. Most of these remoras were too lazy to train properly. They wouldn’t make it as magicians.” _

_ Charlie chuckled. Then, she traced the edge of the package William was holding with her hand. _

Smoke wrapping around fingers.

_ “So, what does your brother want, anyway?” _

_ William picked up the envelope again, eyes darting along the page. _

_ “The impossible. He got this typed up junk from some settlers from Providence… oh, brother… he likes to get all kinds of mystery stuff and send it over to mother. He doesn’t understand that this only fuels her… unhealthy enthusiasm. Now he wants me to send her the book, since she wrote him that I forgot her, and she’s got two sons and loves us so much, and so on and so forth. Right. Also, uncle Henry is sending his oh so warm regards.” _

_ Charlie pressed her cheek to his, staring at the package. _

_ “Maybe we should throw it out?” she asked. _

_ William sighed. He looked at the money Jack sent. The bill was lying on the table. _

_ “I don’t know. It’ just not right.” _

_ “Then let’s at least see what’s inside.” _

_ After a pause, William tore open the brown wrapping paper. _

He was leaning onto the table, elbows forward, even though he remembered sitting to the side from it. The terrible weight of the package was gone, and his head didn’t hurt, much to his surprise. The vertigo was there, still. The sabre was laying in front of him on the white tabletop, at the same spot that-

_ sometime _

_ somewhere _

held the letter.

William stifled a scream.

He wasn’t sitting at a table, it was more of a cube of a dense snow.

Opposite of him, as relaxed as two people sharing an evening chat, there sat two corpses.

  
  


He knew that these were once alive, though had no idea what could turn a living, breathing thing into something like that. The figures - his terrible company - looked stenciled out of ashes and dust, like the bricks of that house that came out of nowhere.

They did resemble walruses, but looked more like people - one bigger, one smaller, grey mummified faces and bodies, grey bones jetting out, brey teeth bared in wide grins. A parent and a child. Or an older brother… and a younger one.

William looked around. There were no other gaps in the walls. He heard about Inuit people making holes in the ceilings for the smoke from their fires to escape. There was no such thing here.

The space was empty, except for the “table” and the things in the middle. The walls gave way to ceiling, stained with black muck, like the one left from the hounds they fought. Daylight seeped through the clean patches of snow, filling the air with thick, uneasy twilight.

These creatures didn’t need a fire.

They didn’t need light - neither at night, nor at all.

After a few tries, William managed to grab the sabre. His limbs went numb. Only then did he realise how cold it was, immeasurably colder than outside. His breath came out in white clouds of steam, his eyes hurt, and he couldn’t feel his fingers at all.

He fell. The sabre hit the snow with a ring, the muck on the walls dripped, coming together into tendrils of smoke.

William couldn’t take it. He screamed, leaped up, accidentally hitting one of the terrible corpses. The grey shoulder, the jutting bone, the twisted hand - all fell away like sand. The air smelled like dust. His ears were ringing. 

There was an axe maniac waiting outside, but William just didn’t care anymore.

He grasped the sword with numb fingers and fell to his knees next to the crawlspace. He prayed the way out was still there and he crawled forward, unable to see anything.

When a hand grabbed his own, he screamed again.

Wilson dragged him out of the crawlspace like a mole out of a burrow.

The axe wasn’t in his hands.

William dropped the sword. His whole body trembled. Wilson shook him by the shoulders and yelled something.

“...your mind! What’s inside? Did you touch anything?”

“N- no- there- two corpses- ashes- black muck everywhere-”

“Something like that?”

William looked down. Instead of the hounds, the igloo was surrounded with stains of black muck.

“Y-yes,” he said. “Yes.”

“You were gone for forty minutes. I’ve cut down one tree already, and wanted to go after you. Then the hounds decided to become rotten stew. Was there a stick inside?”

“No. No, there was nothing, just a table and... two of these… one big and one small, i guess-”

“Yes, the walruses, one bigger, one smaller. There’s always two.”

“Y-you said,” he trembled from cold and fear.

“I did? I don’t remember. God, Carter we should’ve gone together if you were so against me going alone. What made you play the hero-”

William was so outraged he stopped shaking.

“Made me? You threatened me with a weapon to go into that-”

“Carter, are you feeling alright?” Wilson took a step back and touched William’s cheek, trying to look him in the eye. “I think you’re running a fever.”

“You goddamn crazy-”

He pushed Wilson. Or he tried to, but could barely keep himself upright.

“Calm down, come on! Stop moving around- Carter, I’m not touching you! Stop it!”

“Don’t you understand?” William hissed.

Wilson looked at him, miffed.

“Understand what?”

William made himself silent.

Wilson was lying.

He was pretending.

He just had to have remembered everything.

It wasn’t the time to speak about it. Not the time to act. William was too weak.

It would be better to wait.

Wait until nightfall.

William tried to act natural. 

“We can’t make a fire inside that ‘house’. Unless break the ceiling, at least.”

“Yes, I’ve tried,” Wilson interrupted. “While you were in there. It seems this stuff isn’t real snow, like the clothes the walruses had weren’t real clothes. The axe can’t break it, at least. It’s colder than normal. I’ll take a look inside, too, if you don’t mind… It’s a pity to lose a dwelling like that, but freezing to death or dying from inhaling smoke is out of the question. And without a fire at night we’re dead, too.”

“Of course.”

_ “Ladies and gentlemen, the great and powerful, the amazing…” _

Wilson paused next to the tunnel. A few plans went through William’s head, but there was nothing to close the entrance with. No stones, nothing… nothing like that snow.

_ Just the smoke. _

William rubbed his neck. The silk longs since lost the smell of the flowers. It felt as if it was covered with soot, sticking to his fingers, staining them with black smoke and itching.

William took it off, clutching it in his hand, like the dusty fabric so long ago. His fingers tingled, blood flowing back into them. He glanced at the tree, at the firewood Wilson chopped up. He realised that this was the first time that he was looking forward to the coming dark.


	13. The Book and the Answer

The snow house stood on a border line. William saw it when he was looking for grass under the snow. His hand reached reddish stone instead of the black mud, and he cleared two more feet of ground to make sure the line was really there.

Borders and edges were harsh in this world.

“Ever noticed having a problem with undertones?” Wilson asked amiably, once.

He had to acknowledge it: Wilson had grit. William thought about it, putting on a mechanical smile to call his companion over and show off his discovery. All this time… it was what… day eight, but even before… ah, to hell with it. All this time he lived side by sad with someone who he thought was responsible for his troubles. It was all from his insanity, of course, but madmen believe their own delusions. In any case, that was  _ a lot _ . Pretending to trust, pretending to care, helping, sharing food and pretending William wasn’t just a walking supply of pemmican.

And he pretended so well that sometimes William - the dunce, the absolute idiot, - really believed him.

He didn’t know how good of a scientist Wilson was. Sure, he could do great and terrible things, but William wasn’t well versed in the sciences or their adepts. There was one thing he knew, though: had Wilson entered the stage, the crowd would be at his feet. Everyone: cynics and elders, children and workers, villagers and city folk. Broadway, New York, San-Francisco.

“It’s the greatest illusion ever,” William thought, looking at Wilson. He smiled so genuinely, crouched over the border, pointing somewhere and saying something. “Not a single mistake in sight. I’ve got a lot to learn before I reach that height.”

Who knows, William may even surpass him. 

He’ll have his whole life to do that.

If everything was to go well tonight.

“It’s a wasteland,” Wilson announced. His fingers felt the side of his backpack, taking out the map almost on instinct. The parchment was so wrinkled and dirty that it looked like a piece of crumpled grey paper.

_ the letter _

_ the smoke _

Even Wilson squinted, looking at his own creation.

“Would you look at that,” he mumbled absent-mindedly, turning the dirty patch side to side. “You know, Carter, you were right.”

“Right?” William asked politely, amiably. 

“The wormhole wasn’t connected to a different island, it was another end of the old one. We’re still more or less where we were. I might be mistaken, but… remember, when we were on the meadows in the early summer, uh, you got scared by a gobbler then, there was a patch of wasteland to the north, but we didn’t go there. Remember that?”

“I do,” William said. Politely. Amiably.

“I still believe traveling over this type of terrain is a last resort. There’s almost no thorn trees there, and obviously no shrubbery. Anyway, I- I don’t want to jump to conclusions here, but putting together the information we’ve got, this might be the wasteland we saw.”

William thought it over.

It was probably a lie, meant to lull him into a false sense of security. Wilson knew how desperate he was to reach the old camp. The wasteland was still in the way, so if he was to keep moving in the same direction, he’d cross it anyway.

“...if we are very lucky, of course, but the probability is around sixty percent. Carter, are you listening?”

“Yes.”

Politely. Amiably.

“If we keep the course, don’t wander around and move quickly, we’ve got a chance of coming out a little lower than the old camp, around this forest… And from there it’s two days and we’re at the chess fields.”

***

They cut down the second tree, splitting the firewood, and walked as far from the snow house as they could. Even Wilson didn’t want to stay next to it. He came out of the crawlspace empty-handed, giving no comment about what he saw. He just waved his hand towards the wasteland - let’s find a place to rest there, Carter.

The whispering and phrases were almost constant in the background, like radio. William was nauseous. All his strength went to concealing his plan. Later, they were sitting next to the fire, the twilight darkening around them. William was late to notice that Wilson, rustling through the map, having eaten his part of the pumpkin, was talking to him.

“...rter. Wilson snapped a dangling corner of the map to look at William. His expression was one of vague disbelief and disappointment. “Aren’t you glad? Your theory has been confirmed.”

“I am.”

Wilson whook the map and looked over, into the dark covering the horizon. Then, his gaze wandered back to WIlliam.

Uncle Henry would chastise him for running his mouth, but left a more important problem unattended. It was no wonder, since anything that demanded a length of thinking flew right over his head. William noticed and accepted the shortcoming himself. It was quite unlucky for a magician: he had trouble keeping the role straight.

He always thought, subconsciously, that the audience understood it was all a game and accepted it, in a way, when paying for a ticket. When he, a magician, an artist, had to bring the situation to a peak, stretch the pause, look at his audience and play in earnest, he got a little taken aback.

He looked at them, players in the game, almost like him, with surprise and disbelief. Should we really overact? Do you really not know the truth?

And he stumbled, opening his cards, so that he could finally see who is on the stage and who...

“You just weren’t all that enthusiastic about this. About the old camp, the platform.”

_ About the gate. _

_ “I think this is the way to go.” _

Wilson shrugged and folded the map again, staring at it, then unfolding it again. A movement as automatic, as absent-minded and as perfect as the movement of pebbles in the fingers of the greatest magicians.

“That’s true. I was sceptical about this whole idea, because I’ve had, well,” his shoulders moved again, “A certain kind of experience. A negative one. I told you the truth, Carter. Last time the gate took me to a world just like this one, but worse, the next one to another and so on. Until I reached the… the throne. And then everything started over. That’s it.”

His fingers traced the bend of the derelict parchment again.

“It’s hard to ignore experience here. The only way to survive here is to be mindful of your experience, you must know that by now. And you believed in the gate from the very start, from the very first word, you believed in something that isn’t even there yet. It probably won’t work in a broken world, anyway. No, it wasn’t faith, it was a conviction, like you were a prophet from the middle ages. You weren’t willing to think about the experience, and you weren’t willing to listen.”

_ “I think this is the way to go. Do you?” _

“You explained, quite logically, why you don’t like the gate idea, but my question was the opposite. Why, Higgsbury?”

Wilson folded the map so it was the size of a penny, gripped it between his fingers and pushed. The square slipped under his index finger, but Wilson didn’t have the skill, and it almost fell. He managed to catch it with his other hand.

“Well,” he looked at William and smiled awkwardly, “you know, you’re quite contagious.”

There was barely a foot of space between them. They were sitting on what remained of the sleeping bag. The axe was there, but to reach it Wilson would have to turn around or stretch over. If he did the latter, he’d leave a side open, and if he did the former, his neck would be vulnerable.

The sabre was under William’s right hand.

_ “I think this idea was a failure from the start.” _

The awkward smile looked out of place on Wilson’s face, turning it, with all the scars, the lines of the skull under his skin, the ruffled mess of hair, into something warmer than it should be. Than it really was. Than it had to be, because Wilson was just a deceitful madman who liked to torture people. Who could eat someone alive.

William’s fingers touched the transparent hilt. He hesitated. He didn’t know why, but he did.

_ “Maxie, this is our chance.” _

No… It was too early. He had to be sure when he hit.

“Oh, about contagion.” Wilson slipped the square of the map into the backpack and shuffled closer. “How are you feeling?” he raised a hand, then seemed to remember something and lowered it again. “You seem to have a fever.”

“Maybe,” William said mechanically, touching his own forehead. His hand was bare, the wrappings drying over the fire. His forehead was hot.

_ “Do you really think it matters?” _

“Just spent too much time in that frozen crypt. Nothing serious.”

“The stitches?”

“Long since healed,” William peeled off a part of the complicated mess of vest and patching to see one of his wounds. It looked pale and old. “It’s okay.”

_ “You worry too much. It won’t get worse if we just try, right?” _

“Don’t worry, Wilson. I- The supper really helped, and if I just sit here in the heat I’ll be better in no time.”

Wilson frowned. William tried not to shake. He felt chilly, but wasn’t going to show it.

“What about your head? You talked about sounds. Words and other hallucinations. Some woman.”

“Right as rain. You can go to sleep, I’ll be fine.”

_ “It’s all made up.” _

“It’s just, we don’t have any flowers anymore. And that thing you had is useless, too, right? I knew it, the fabric couldn’t keep the effect longer than the flowers themselves.”

“Yes,” William looked around helplessly. He had no more ideas. “But the food is helping. And the light. And- um, your company keeps my head in check. I’m not sure why, but it’s true, I really… feel okay right now.”

_ “It’s quackery. Fraud.” _

“I’ve noticed something like that too,” Wilson said slowly. “I mean the company. I didn’t think I’d ever tell you this, but you know, Carter, I’d be long dead without you.”

William shook his head.

“Come on.”

_ “No, Maxie. Look, here… I’ve made the translation of two passages…” _

“I’m serious. Damn,” Wilson grinned and rubbed his arm, “if I was to just wake up on the grass alone after the throne, I probably wouldn’t even light the fire in the evening. I mean, what’s the point?”

_ “...it’s stunning, even if it’s all just a joke, whoever made it had brains the size of the French Academy. So many connections. Strong conclusions. They look insane, but…” _

“Survival.” William couldn’t bear it. He clutched his temples. They seemed to be pulsing with fever, his head was spinning, the two distant voices argued, it was growing more and more heated, and the heat was dark and full of smoke. “Don’t starve, remember? You told me… that’s how you live around here. Just for the hell of it. Food, safety, warmth and light. Everything you need.”

_ “Basically, umbra? Like “smell”?” _

_ “Did you skip all the latin lessons at school? Like “shadow”. And don’t do anything to the vowel at the start of the word, that’s not english, you know.” _

“I lied to you, William.”

_ “It’s nonsense, Charlie, and you know it. We don’t live in a fairy tale.” _

“Will you forgive me for that?”

_ “Maxie… Will… please. Haven’t you ever wanted something real?” _

“S- sure, what’s the problem, I- forget it, I-”

_ “Fairy tales aren’t real, Charlie. In the best ones you just get bled dry by the charlatans throwing a talentless show, and the worst have too expensive a ticket.” _

“And for everything else, too. It’s just a habit. I haven’t had company for a long time. Even longer than I’ve spent here. Now I see the difference all too clear. I care about… you and… everything else. I was wrong.”

William grinned, but it turned into a grimace. It felt as if his head was full of something thorned and it moved.

_ “Fine. Fine then. Let’s just throw it out. We should have done it from the start.” _

“...William? Listen- damn it. Alright, you go to sleep, I’m standing guard first.”

_ “Never!” _

_ “ _ William.” He flinched. Wilson’s palms were full of snow, he pressed to William’s face, holding his head, looking him in the eyes. The darkness receded. “Can you hear me? Can you speak? Say something!”

_ William could swear they looked at the knife at the same time. He didn’t know what Charlie saw, but his sight didn’t just take in the dull prop blade, but the picture frame standing next to it. The photograph depicted two smiling people, a man in a new suit and glasses, a woman with a flower in her hair. For a second he didn’t know why they kept a picture of strangers, even if the strangers were so happy. _

_ It’s been too long, he thought numbly. _

_ Charlie stood opposite him. The awful book bared its teeth - the notes between its pages. His notes, Charlie’s writing, the translations they made and the commentary. It was lying on the floor between them. He threw it there, and it hit floor with a sound like a mountain fell with it. _

_ The floor was dark, almost black. It seemed like smoke clouding over it. That were the visions, of course. William smoked a lot of tobacco, but smoke never behaved that way. _

_ The smoke was hanging in the air. That’s a place where it could be, and it was. _

_ Charlie silently pulled back a strand of hair hanging over her eyes. It didn’t help much. Her empty hairstyle pulled apart and fell into something from a shakespearean witch. It’s been a while since she put a flower in her hair. Nowadays it was only during shows, and those happened less and less. _

_ Too long? “When did it all start,” William thought. He felt his lips stretch in a pathetic, crying grin. A year ago? A year and a half? _

_ “I’m sorry, he said. “I didn’t mean to.” _

_ “It’s okay.” If his smile looked the same as hers, dying would be the better option. “We both said too much.” _

_ She bowed down and picked up the book. The smoke came up with her, the pages with notes fluttered and grew still. A melody from a gramophone was coming from behind the walls. Someone was having fun. Putting on a little show for himself. _

_ William focused on his memories. He tried to remember what he was doing there, why he was there at all. He tried to remember where ‘there’ was, and his inner vision flooded with visions that looked like postcards, burned postcards coming from smoke and flames. The squares and the alleyways, stages, better and worse but never really brilliant, never wonderful. What is this place, he thought through the pain, was it San-Francisco? How could he remember that city, all he managed to do was… buy a ticket. _

_ He saw other things, too: himself, waking up next to a dormant campfire in the snow. A drifter hugged him and William was warm. Both of them, thin and ragged, wandered across an endless wasteland, keeping each other up. A few feet from them the stone ended, falling away into the tumultuous winter sea. They walked along the line, determined like explorers seeking the South Pole. _

_ All of it couldn’t be true. Something was a lie. _

_ “The tickets are sold. We can’t back down now.” _

_ “We won’t. It has to work,” he said, barely able to hear himself. “Do you believe me?” _

_ A year ago, or a year and a half - when did they start? _

_ Why did they do it? Who was the first? _

_ Who is the first now? _

_ Why does this thought anger him so? _

_ Since then it was all smoke-filled endless twilight, the power and fame escaping him. The miracle escaping him. It slipped through his fingers, all smoke-wrapped and slippery, it made him walk forward, run on, it never gave him any hints and left behind only questions. _

_ What kind of an enormous, twisted mind could make all of this? Who’s to blame, and if the questions are so terrible, what would the answers be? _

_ The walked on and on, faster and faster. _

_ “I believe you. And I believe in myself. We’ll get them all, Maxie.” _

_ “I know.” _

“...we’re not going back,” Wilson said stubbornly. “Stopping in the winter without a camp is a small death in itself, but going back - no, never. There has to be a way forward. We’ll think of something. What matters is… you feeling better?”

William opened his eyes.

The cold, wet wind moved his clothes and pierced his skin. He felt weak, but much stronger than before.

How did he manage to get here?

_ Two drifters dragging their feet along the sea. _

He looked at the plateau again. It has changed. There was still the sea left and right, leaving open the narrow isthmus and the wall of smooth black obelisks. It didn’t look natural. It didn’t look like they could get through.

“There… Is the platform there?”

“Yes. Let me think. Swimming is not an option, as we’ve already discussed. You forgot. I see. That’s okay, you’re running a fever. Sit next to the campfire, William, eat some pumpkin. Here’s your cut. You’re very weak. I’ve pretty much carried you the last couple of miles.” 

The fire was lit, a faint smell of food slipping into the darkness. Around him, it was getting darker. Was there a sunrise today? Was there anything but that book, and their greed, and the thirst, and the road, the darkness, the gnashing teeth?

His memories were mixing together. He didn’t know where the truth stopped and the delirium began, and there was so little he could do to escape, there were barely any answers.

“Anyway, we’ll deal with it tomorrow.”

‘Just one answer’, he thought, looking at Wilson. The scientist's back was turned. He was probably using the dying daylight to see the barrier. The wall he’d dragged William to, just to mock him one last time.

_ A great, terrible, colossal mind. _

The way to the platform was severed.

It was no more, and Wilson showed him that. There was no way out. He’d be stuck there, forever.

Now, in the moment of his triumph, Wilson got so reckless he didn’t even carry the axe. He left it by the fire.

What a mistake.

The fire crackled and smoke rose. Moment by moment, the darkness grew.


	14. The Gate

Wilson Higgsbury had made a lot of stupid mistakes before, but this one crossed the line. Instead of turning back to the campfire and looking at the miserable victim of his lies, he took a blind step back. He was still looking at the black stones, still talking.

William knew how quick Wilson's reactions were, he saw how it usually ended, but now he must have let himself get carried away. He didn’t pay any mind to the rustling, the ringing of the chainmail - it felt cold as ice even through the layers of fabric. He ignored the creaking snow behind him. He probably thought it was no threat. 

Of course.

It was just William.

The sabre cut through the air with a terrible, disgusting sound. William had no idea that his weapon was capable of that, that anything in the world was capable of that: the screech was almost alive, and he was awash with smoke when the blade met flesh.

Wilson stopped a phrase at the exhale. He managed to raise his hand and dodge, falling to the left. The sabre cut along his arm, elbow to wrist, taking apart the layers of fabric. William knew each and every one, from the sleeves to the old wrappings on his hands, he couldn’t not know. He saw Wilson dress so many times, and even helped him once or twice.

He knew Wilson Higgsbury very well.

The blade slipped under fabric, under straw and more fabric, deeper still. The hilt reacted. William could have sworn the metal trembled.

Blood splattered on the snow.

Wilson fell, leaning on his good hand, raking in snow. He moved forward. A part of William’s mind reacted - a dark, ancient part that grew and learned in this world, that was used to fighting, looking for openings and weaknesses, fighting again, fighting to survive, to  _ eat _

_ Don’t starve _

It let him know how clumsy Wilson was, how careless. He let go of a chance to attack William’s legs, maybe even knock him to the ground. His short height would be just enough.

Wilson didn’t.

Instead, he rolled away, dodging another hit of the screeching blade

_ screeching was more muffled _

and shouted:

“William!”

_ “William!” _

He was closer to the campfire than William, a whole foot closer. That meant being closer to what was left there.

“Can’t let him reach the axe,” William thought. Blood pulsed in his ears, smoke mixed with something red bled across his vision. Every beat of his heart pumped a new flash, and his peripheral vision was one big blind spot, swimming in red mist.   
  


_ “Maxie! Will!” _

_ The smoke crushed over them and the stage drowned in darkness. There was a wave of thundering applause and there was the music, the awful, torturous dancing music that wormed into his ears and gnawed at his brain. _

William made another hit, blindly.

The weapon was almost knocked from his hands. The transparent metal clashed with the normal one.

_ She was lifted up. The pages were turning by themselves, as if moved by wind, no, by a tornado. Did the book even have this many pages? _

William cursed aloud and lunged again, jumping to the right and turning. If he was in Wilson’s place he’d try to hit again, even if the previous blow hit the blunt end. Wilson grabbed the axe haphazardly, as he wasn’t even going to fight.

Another mistake.

_ Claws and teeth in the darkness. _

“You screw up a lot,” William growled, lunging forward again. The fire, blindingly white, danced to his side, creeping painfully through the red mist.

Wilson dodged. Sparks flew out, making William back away.

For a second they both stilled, breathing heavily, staring at each other. The campfire was between them.

Wilson’s expression was terrifying. He trembled, then bared his teeth, but it wasn’t a grin of a predator. This wasn’t the lithe, resilient man in a battle stance with a deadly sharp axe in his hand, the man who could take on a gigantic tree and a monstrous spider, ready to fight anything and anyone. In that moment, he was no predator. His face was twisted with pain, and his clenched teeth showed only pain, the peak of suffering, a terrible, unbearable misery. For a second, William doubted the wound was a surface one. An expression like that could only belong to the dying. It looked like agony.

The blood dripped on the fabric on his left hand. The red mist pulsed around it.

“Maxwell,” Wilson struggled, pain and anger hissing on his breath. The axe shook in his hands. His whole body was shaking. “I- I’ll kill you. I will bloody kill you.”

“Tell me, pal,” William seethed, licking his lips. “Are you done pretending?

The firelight danced along the axe blade, thrashing like a hanged man. Wilson gripped it with both hands.

“Yes,” he forced out, trying to smile. His grimace got worse. Eating meat bleached his bared teeth to ivory-white. “I screw up again and again. Nothing- over and over. I’m such a- useless- stupid mockery- the same mistake.”

“Why didn’t you kill me? Saved for the winter? Well, the winter’s here! Or do you just enjoy my suffering?”

Wilson was silent.

“You…” he said. “What are you-”

“The Middle Ages are nothing compared to you! - William took a step, a half-burned branch snapping beneath his feet. “Torturing a man with hope! A little too complicated for someone who doesn’t read books, isn’t it? Why did you do it, Higgsbury, god, why? Why did you string me along? There is no gate! No way out! And you’ve always known!“

_ The claws and teeth twisted off the pages, dissolving everything in the dark stench and the smoke. This is no music, William thought, it’s a scream. How could he think it was music? Charlie is screaming, and  _

“Why did you trick me.” The bloodstained blade of his sword trembled. William realised he was trembling, too. “Didn’t think I could fight back? Can’t take you on, mister survivalist? What a waste… I had- I had a great teacher.”

_ and the scream burns like a red flower in the darkness, pulses like blood. He’s being torn apart, into a thousand million pieces. He wants to scream, too, but he can’t breathe. The dust is filling his mouth, he can’t breathe and the blood rushes in his ears.  _

_ There’s only the dust and the darkness, and the shadows. The scream turns into something terrible. William struggles to help, to do something while he still can, but he can’t feel his body. _

_ A magician with no body. That would put Houdini to shame. _

_ “Magician” _

_ William reaches forward with his mind. Dust mixes together with the red tatters and devours them. Shadows slip past, coming closer. _

_ “Charlie, Charlie!” _

_ The sound is overwhelming, as if time and space itself is crushing in on itself. William knows - it’s just the music, just the dust. Just the scream. _

“And the woman,” William felt something drip down his cheeks, and realised it were tears. “Charlie. She was- was right there in front of me. What did you do to her, you bastard? What did you do?”

“Nothing.” Wilson’s voice is all disbelief and something more, something strange. “I don’t know a Charlie. I didn’t want to kill you, I- at first I did, but then- but I- told you the truth yesterday, you- this is wrong, it’s a mistake.”

_ His struggle could have torn stars apart. He remembered words, but had no mouth to speak. He remembered pages, but they got taken apart by the dust. _

_ “Magician.” _

_ Uncle Henry was right all along. All he could do were cheap, simple, useless tricks. It was all tricks: escaping an angry crowd, pulling a rabbit out of a hat, deceit, slipping and escaping. Magic tricks out of his sleeve. Miracles made of whatever. _

_ A billion dust particles pierce through him, take him apart, twist and destroy him - his feelings, his memory in tatters of color, shrunken a thousand times over, swallowed and devoured by the shadows and the smoke. _

“I didn’t want to kill you,” Wilson pleaded. ”I  _ don’t _ want to kill you.” 

_ He did the only thing he knew how. What he always did. What he was going to do that evening. _

_ And he tried to do it as best he could. _

“You’re not Maxwell.”

“Why did you do it,” William repeated, numbly. His mind was filled with tatters of color, too many and too terrible. Too terrible to put together, too complex. Billions of dust particles making up the world.

“I didn’t. I- I believe we can complete the gate. I believe you. Maybe- maybe I’m just following my own mistakes, but I believe you. I didn’t plan anything against you, why would you even think that… We’ll find a way forward, Carter.”

_ The music played on. The scream, William knew, the endless scream. _

“Turn it off,” he said, barely audible.

“We’ll find the way. You and me. You’re not Maxwell… Maxwell is gone, it’s a time paradox, the world is broken, so it’s possible… and you are William Carter, magician, my companion, my friend, my- William, you’re ill, you’re delirious, the world must be breaking you with it, you’re tied together, William, please, put down the sword, I don’t want to hurt you, I-”

“Turn it off,” William said out loud. He didn’t know if he believed Wilson or not. He wanted to. Wanted as much as he wanted to find the door, as much as he wanted to quench his hunger, as much as he wanted to escape. But there was so much smoke, and it carried pain and the scream with it. William couldn’t think. The dust mixed like clay, creating and destroying. William would beg anyone, even uncle Henry, and he begged:

“Turn it-”

“Goddamn it... no!”

Wilson disappeared to the side, taken by the red mist. William turned his head feverishly, grimacing in pain, and saw his

_ companion? enemy? no, he didn’t want Wilson to be his enemy, he’d do anything for- _

He saw Wilson jump at the dark shadow, the claws in the dark that crawled on the ground towards the fire. Saw him trample the snow, ice flying everywhere.

The shadow flinched and jerked away, as it was real.

“William! The other one! They’ll put out the fire!”

William looked down. The music was cutting his head from the inside. A shadow hand reached towards the barely burning flame.

Maybe it was all in his head. The world blurred and trembled. The red mist and the black smoke mixed together like playing cards.

He didn’t know what was truth and was fiction. He realised he never really knew, it just became clear moments ago. All the moves were the wrong ones, all lead to his downfall. He was lost, dissolved in the shadows and darkness. There was no strategy to make.

_ “Then you can choose whatever you want, Maxie. Tricks are all calculation, but magic…” _

William stumbled to the left, stepping on the shadow hand.

The music clawed at his ears for one last time and stopped.

William looked at Wilson.

He knew what path to choose.

This moment, the claws tore out of the darkness and ate the flame like they would a heart. It was gone.

The silence was absolute. It felt like a blessing - William could think again.

Then, Wilson howled.

“Fire! We’ve got to light the fire!”

They both had flint and steel in their pockets. But what to burn? The darkness around felt like something more than the absence of light. It was the absence of matter.

A bitterly cold wind whistled close, making him smell dust.

Sparks flew the darkness, a tiny weak flame shone, showing him the cloth of Wilson’s vest, his chin covered with black stubble, his trembling hands. One was bare and the other wrapped in a straw glove.

“Here, quick, we have to find something that-”

William stepped towards him. Something flew past his back, cold, hissing.

He leaped towards the light. It quivered. Wilson took off his second glove and threw the embers in. The flame grew stronger. They both knew how quickly it would go out.

William searched around for the fire pit. There had to be wood left, but the blurred shadows covered the ground. They had to make every moment count. He reached around with his foot. The fire pit was there, it had to be...

“Keep to the light, it-”

William stumbled over something. It fell with a familiar sound.

“You pack!”

“Great!”

“No, wait, it won’t-”

“We won’t need it with no light!”

“-burn.”

All the way there, the snow flew onto the pack. In their ‘camp’ it stood in the wet wind from the sea. Now, it fell in the snow, It was too wet on the outside and too secure to push the embers in. Through the last flashes of light, Wilson pushed the dying flame into the open pocket where the folded map was.

The few moments in the dark were terrifying, but then the pocket glowed like a lamp and the wicker slowly gave in to the flame.

They traded glances and grabbed the pack at the same time, trying to both salvage the supplies and keep the weak flame going while they dragged it towards the fire pit. Of course, it was so close all this time. Why couldn’t they see it?

_ Maybe it wasn’t there when the darkness came. _

_ In the darkness there was only dust… and them. _

The darkness wouldn’t give in. The fire couldn't break it.

_ Too much blood. Too much smoke. _

No, they just needed a few more seconds. A little more time.

In the blinking light of the campfire, William saw Wilson. The scientist was smiling tentatively, trying to say something. He was the only thing William saw untouched by the mist and the smoke. He almost smiled himself.

A freezing cold stabbed his heart, enveloped every ring of his chainmail, wrapped around him. Everything stilled. Even his blood seemed frozen in his arteries.

In the red darkness he saw Wilson hit something black, hanging in the air close to him. It fell away from the axe only to knit back together. It was awful, amorphous yet alive, claws and teeth jutting out everywhere.

_ Darkness. _

William got thrown to the ground. Each hit was worse than the least. He turned on his back, praying not to touch the barely burning flame. If it went out, they were doomed.

It burned on, stable and strong, but the fire wasn’t like the usual. It was a ghost of a flame, transparent and immaterial, unable to fight what was going on. 

The shadows crowded over William. The twisted silhouettes covered the sky like pine trees, lost in the dark.

_ Claws and teeth. _

No.

William gripped the sabre and leaped to his feet. The blade went through something that felt like water. The darkness weakened.

William growled and turned. The world was quaking. Not like when the cyclops deer walked over it, now the very framework trembled inside it. It seemed about to crumble into dust.

Ice cold claws hit his chainmail, but they couldn’t freeze it any further. The slipped over his fingers, but the cut produced only a few drops of blood.

Shadows?

That was it?

That was the horrible creature?

“I’ve got a shadow, too.” William said or thought. He was enveloped in anger and insanity, cold and harsh as a winter’s night. He couldn’t hear his own voice. In the ghostly pale light of the fire, his shadow was swinging the sabre’s shadow.

It looked real in its hands.

The screech of the shadow sword came from two places at once. The claws and teeth from the darkness met the flesh and metal to match.

William leaped forward, attacking another shadow. Its claws almost reached Wilson’s neck.

They stood back to back, weapon in hands, looking around in search of the enemy. Smoke clouded. Another monster was about to appear.

But the world blinked, the darkness changing into grey dust. Then it came together again, throwing up the absolute absence of matter.

It wasn’t black. Nothingness had no color.

The wind howled.

This wasn’t a shadow.

The world clouded with black smoke, pulsing around the vacuum. William saw a familiar silhouette in the shaking dust.

“Charlie?” he whispered.

He didn’t remember her all that well, he knew so little, he didn’t even know

_ didn’t remember _

what he’d done, what they’d done, and who made the first step, and who took them both down into the abyss.

Maybe it didn’t matter anymore.

“Ch- Charlie… It’s-It’s me, William… It’s me… Maxwell.”

They nothingness wasted no time.

William felt the despair rush in as he realised that even if this was - once - a woman, a girl he remembered and wanted to help, there was nothing left of her.

She was gone.

What he had was a chance not to repeat his own mistakes.

A strike came from nowhere

_ and it was nothing _

and sent Wilson flying to the side, away from the fire. It tore all fabric off his back like a knife. A tendril - a hand? a paw? a part? of the creature appeared and wrapped around him. The creature forgot its first victim. William gathered his strength and howled, dragging the sabre up, trying to wound the emptiness. The blood from his fingers hung in the air in scarlet tatters, like smoke. The world was falling apart. 

Its very framework crumbled into dust.

When William woke up, the dawn was breaking. Somehow, the fire survived, stubbornly eating at a branch.

He felt terrible, but that was not unusual at this point. He was surprised to see that the chainmail was gone, leaving a weak dark outline of its rings on his clothes.

The sabre was still there. William was still holding it.

Wilson was lying on the ground close by. He groaned. William could barely focus his vision on him. The world was brighter, but it wasn’t stable. The red mist still peppered his vision.

“You’ll live.” William said after a terribly long time he took to get up check on Wilson. The wound on his back wasn’t as bad as he thought. Wilson got even luckier than the first time. At least this one wouldn’t give him much more scars.

“The wall,” Wilson rasped, “the obelisks.”

William turned.

The black stones that blocked their way just yesterday were gone.

On the other side, through the untouched snow, he could see the savanna.

***

The map was gone, too, so they navigated by sun and memory. It’s a wonder how much memory can do, William thought. Wilson’s calculations were right. On day twelve the savanna ground became uneven, pitfalls and hills, ravines and rifts scattered across the landscape. At first they were small, but grew larger as the travelers walked on. It was as if the ground created itself a short time ago.

They both knew it didn’t happen by itself. 

These folds of twisted earth were full of life. It found a way, and the two of them were a part of the circle, a part of life, too. Once again, they hunted rabbits and birds, cut the plentiful grass and dug out wild carrots. In the evenings, William felt sated again. The campfires were bright and warm, and when the travelers felt it was not enough, they warmed each other up. William watched the sky. The sun seemed to stay for longer.

Moving forward became harder and harder. They had to scale one obstacle after another, losing time. Polar explorers, overcoming ice ridge after ice ridge. 

Scott was losing time, too, William thought, his new wicker backpack swinging on his shoulders. Or just counting it differently while traveling across the plane. In his mind, he added time to their journey. Yet, he knew that every hour of every day brought them closer to their goal. It made him feel stronger. 

“There it is,” Wilson said. He climbed a tall ridge and turned to help William up. “See? Right there.”

William did see it.

The ground ahead was a mess. It was all almost vertical hurdles and rifts that seemed to go deep into the center of this world. Beyond that, farther still, there were the white and purple squares of the chess fields. 

To reach the first square they wasted almost the entire day and four lengths of rope. It was their entire supply. They had to leave three of those where they tied them to.

The last hundred yards of their way was littered with bones. There, the ground has been torn apart and then pushed itself together. In its grip, there were ribcages, horned elongated skulls whitened by the winter, and heavy fibulae. “That’s beefalo”, Wilson said calmly, as he walked between them. The ground was lined with long shadows. William looked up, expecting to see bent, dry pine trees. Instead, on the hill nearby, he saw the thick, colossal lines of a ribcage.

The skull was further away. They walked underneath it, as if it was an arch, and slipped down the iced over jaw. From the ground, the teeth of the cyclops deer looked like broken marble columns.

William felt a jolt of fear when he walked by it. That fear followed him for a while, but in that moment it mixed and dissolved with anticipation and took over. He always feared that the platform was gone. Feared going all this way and not being able to find it.

Wilson touched his shoulder. His fingers trembled.

Maybe he was afraid of that, too.

“I can’t believe it,” he said quietly. “William… I can’t believe it.”

It was right ahead, across a wide rift in the marble floor, surrounded with pitfalls. Narrow walkways crossed the gaps - fallen trees, broken columns, shattered marble. In the dying light of the sunset, there it was. A black silhouette across the sky. The unfinished thing.

It really did look like a gate from out there.

Something rumbled behind them. The ground shook.

Wilson grabbed his shoulder and yelled something. William turned. The mass of bones was shaking, wrapping itself in black mist. It lifted off the ground, struggled out. Half the savanna was moving.

“Oh hell… Finish the gate, Carter, I’ll distract it- them-!”

The axe was in his hand once again. William shrugged off the backpack and rustled through it, searching for the metal potato thing. He wanted to shout, to stop Wilson, but realised it was no use. Wilson did what he knew how to do well. William was afraid, but still believed in him.

It was time to do what he knew how to.

This time it was going to be his greatest trick.

He was scared that he’d be too late to put the last part in place. He was afraid of falling, of the walkways collapsing before he’d reach them. Before Wilson, left far behind, would reach them.

But they held.

It was very quiet on the platform. All the noise and sound, overwhelming with what was happening back there, was just gone.

The radio was on the edge. The handle was several times shorter, but the receiver itself was untouched. William wasn’t even surprised.

It’s a puzzle, he thought, picking up the radio, looking at the magic symbols crossing the pieces. A puzzle he once solved. In magic tricks, training and muscle memory could be more important than any other memory.

He placed the last piece into the gap in the middle and pushed it down, moving it left, to the symbol that looked like the letter “M”. The world trembled

_ the framework _

but the Gate stood silent and still.

“Come on,” William exclaimed, desperate. He turned - the insanity behind him continued, filling up the sky. Smoke mixed with bone. He looked for the small figure holding an axe.

“Come on, come on-”

Any second could cost them Wilson’s life, and later his own. The monster of smoke and bone, a terrible mistake, ailing and wrong, wouldn’t stop at just one victim. 

William wasn’t going to let it have that one, too.

“Captain Scott came back home,” William mumbled. His fingers were getting scratched bloody. The pieces barely moved, getting stuck on every line. The short handle refused to cooperate. “He came back.”

He tried to focus, to let his hands remember.

_ His greatest magic trick. _

San-Francisco, he thought desperately.

_ Concentrated will, condensed to its limits. _

His mind filled with the images of alleyways and dead ends. Now he knew he saw it all once. The world without fear.

_ Focus coming together with a different vector. _

The world without hunger.

_ A demand. _

A way to escape. A way out.

_ An order. _

He reached into the top hat with both hands, grabbed the inside and pulled.

The gate lit up.

“Quick!” Someone shouted right next to him, and it was deafening. All the sounds came flooding back at once.

The world was dying.

It wasn’t about to go out quietly.

William kneeled in front of the gate. It opened, stretching the matter around it: a frame made of roaring light. With the last desperate leap, Wilson reached the platform. His left arm was bloody and loose, the axe and the backpack were gone. The marble collapsed behind him.

“William, you-”

William Carter, magician, pulled the world up by the ears and put it up in the air, showing it to the thundering crowd.

***

William blinked. The platform and the gate seemingly disappeared, along with the smoke, the chess fields and the debris. Instead, he was laying somewhere, looking at the sky, blue and cloudless, framed by the grey walls. Underneath his strangely numb fingers he felt something cold and firm.

It was a sidewalk.

He turned his head and looked to the right, noting the fire escape and the trash can. It’s been so long since he last saw anything like it that those simple things seemed out of place.

Wilson was lying next to him, pale but still breathing. His eyelids moved. Wilson opened his eyes and froze.

Then he breathed out and said, very quietly, in complete disbelief:

“We did it. William, you- we escaped.”

“We escaped,” William repeated mechanically. He didn’t have the strength to get up.

“This is San-Francisco”, he noted silently. He knew it implicitly, it hummed in his blood. On the wall next to the fire escape, he saw a street sign. “Pathrow square”.

Judging by sun’s angle - god knows by now he was well versed in telling the time by the sun - it was late afternoon.

“Why is it so quiet”, William thought. “San-Francisco is such a big city. It barely sleeps as is, and it should be rush hour.”

He sat up, leaning on his elbows, and looked around feverishly - please, let there be just one person, just one car, just-

The street connected to the dead end was deserted. He could see a row of empty shops and the signs over them: a barber’s shop, a launderette, a novelty shop, a cheap restaurant with an Italian name. William has been there before, vague memories rose in his mind, but he couldn’t remember the name. 

He couldn’t see it now, either.

The letters of the sign were covered with spider web coming from a big den. It stood on the sidewalk and almost reached the sign in height.

William tried to lie back down, almost falling. He felt Wilson’s hand find his and grip it tightly. 

“We escaped,” Wilson said again. His smile was brighter than firelight. It was warmer. He was looking at William, and only at him.

William breathed in and breathed out. He wanted to tell him what he saw. His grip tightened, and instead of the asphalt, he felt the warmth of another under his fingers.

Or maybe he could wait a second or two. Just a couple of seconds. What’s a couple of seconds in a day for survivors like them?

The were lying on the sidewalk in a city as silent as death, and they were holding hands.

One. Two.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, that's the end! It was quite the journey. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. Leave a comment if you want to tell me your impressions or tell me anything, really. Thank you for reading and see you again!


End file.
